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LOS  ANGELES 


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IMPORTED    AMERICANS 


The  Real  Problem 


'MPORTED 
AMERICANS 

The  story  of  the 
experiences  of  a 
disguised  American  and  his 
wife  studying  the  immigra- 
tion question      &&$&$& 

By    Broughton    Brandenburg 

With    sixty-six    illustrations 
from   photographs    by  the  author 


NEW  YORK  •    FREDERICK     A. 
STOKES    COMPANY  •    PUBLISHERS 


KiffST^Si'."*^"  -^WE'r:SE?-i3S3J5WS'SfcTSTTnKlBeHJZi 


Copyright,  iqoj,  IQ04, 
By  Frank  Leslie  Publishing  House 

Copyright,  1904, 
By  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company 


This  edition  published  in  August,  1904 


This  volume  is  dedicated  to  my  brave 
little  wife,  who  endured  with  heroism 
conditions  that,  while  not  unbearable 
for  me,  were  superlative  hardships  for 
a  woman  of  delicacy  and  refinement. 

B.  B. 

Clay  Place,  Mamarontck, 
June  2jt  ig04. 


2(        12 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I     The  Impetus  and  the  Method     .     .  i 

II     Life  in  a  New  York.  Tenement   .     .  8 

III  To  Naples  in  the  Steerage  of  the 

Lahn 25 

IV  Conditions  in  the  Neapolitan  Zone,  47 
V     In  the  Roman  Zone 61 

VI     In  the  Heel  and  Toe  of  the  Boot   .  71 
vii     gualtieri-slcamino  and  the  sqjjad- 

rito  Family 83 

VIII     The  Sicilian  Countryside    .     .     .     .  104 

IX     The  Departure 119 

X     From  Sicily  to  Naples 131 

XI     Through  the  City  of  Thieves      .     .  138 

XII     Roguery  and  Illiteracy       .     .     .     .  151 

XIII  The  Embarkation  Process  .     .     .     .  159 

XIV  The  Voyage 171 

XV     The  Voyage  [Continued) 184 

XVI     Nearing  the  Gate 198 

XVII     Within   the    Portals   of  the  New 

World 205 

XVIII     Through  Ellis  Island 215 

XIX     The  Dispersion 228 

XX    The    Struggles   of   the    Gualtieri 

Boys  in  New  York 238 

XXI     Legislation  and  Evasion      ....  246 

XXII     What  to  do  With  the  Immigrant  .  297 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


The  Real  Problem 


The  Tenement  in  Houston  Street  in  which 
the  Author  and  his  Wife  lived  (  The  chimney- 
shadow  marks  their  room) 

Mrs.  Brandenburg  in  her  wretched  Tene- 
ment-room    

Life  on  the  Steerage-passengers'  Deck  on  the 
Lahn 

Preparing  to  Serve  a  Meal  on  the  Lahn  from 
the  Food-tanks  and  Bread-baskets  '. 


Peasant  Types 

Mangling  Hemp 

Morning  in  the  Village  and  Vineyards 

Threshing  Beans 

Scilla — Draught-oxen  of  Italy  .     .     . 


The  Messenger — The  Guide — The  House 
of  the  Squadritos — The  Town  (Gualtieri) 

Part  of  the  Family  gathered  in  the  Kitchen 
{From  left  to  right :  Ina,  Tono,  Giovanina, 
Antonio,  Mrs.  Squadrito,  Giovanni,  Jr., 
Nicola,  Maria) — Felicia  Pulejo — Concetta 

Visitors  in  the  Author's  Room — Teresa  di 
Bianca — The  Old  Woman  up  the  Valley — 
Shyness  in  Shawl  and  Pattens — Small 
Children  Labor  in  the  Fields       .... 


Frontispiece 


Facing  page       8 


12 

28 

38 
50 
56 

64 
72 
82 

90 


98 


IO4 


x      LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Giacomo  Marini,  the  Municipal  Secretary — 
Nicola  Squadrito  at  Work  ( Carmelo  Merlino 
at  the  right Facing  page   1 1 4 

Ina    and    Her    Friends  in  Procession  to  the 

Church  for  Farewell  Blessings    ....       "        "       124 


Departure  From   Gualtieri 

"  Declaring  "  in  the  Messina  Office — Party's 
Baggage  on  Lighter — Friends,  Neighbors 
and  Relatives 

The  Storied  Vicolo  del  Pallonetto  in  Naples, 

At  the  Doorway  of  the  Capitaneria — Author's 
Party  on  the  Quay 


"       132 
"       146 


<< 


162 


Mid- Voyage  Scenes 

Mora — Syrian  Jews — Prostrated  by  the  Swell 
— Children  Escaping  Seasickness 

Half  a  Dozen  Races  on  Common  Ground — 
His  Broth-cup — The  Immigrant  Madonna, 


"       184 
«      1  go 


Life  Aboard  the  Prinzessin  Irene 
Men's  Sleeping-quarters — Ladling  out  Food 
— The  Purser  Hurling  Passengers  About — 
On  the  Fo'c's'1-head 

Part  of  the  Author's  Party — All  Eyes  to  the 
Statue  of  Liberty 

Croatians  and   Italians — Swedes   Arriving — 
Loading  the  Barges,  New  York 

Rushing    Immigrants    on  Barges — Inspectors 
and  Immigrants  at  Ellis  Island    .... 

Stairway  of  Separation — Checking  into  Pens, 

Excluded    for  Age — Waiting  for  Immigrant 
Friends 


194 

206 

210 

214 
218 

222 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS     xi 

The  Immigrants'  Track  Through  Ellis  Island,   Facing  pagt  227 

Mr.  Broughton  Brandenburg,  as  he  Looked 
when  He  Passed  through  Ellis  Island  as  an 
Immigrant «        "      230 

Stonington — The  Barber-shop — The  Squad- 

rito  House «        « 


"        "234 

Night-porter's  Staff  at  Siegel-Cooper  Com- 
pany's (Nunzio  Giunta  in  front  of  post)     .        "         "       242 

Nicola  Curro  at  Work — Ina  Americanized — 
Saint's  Figure,  covered  with  Bags  of 
Money «        «      264 

Nicola  Curro  Studying  English  in  the 
Author's  Home  in  New  York     ....       "        "280 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  IMPETUS  AND  THE  METHOD 

THAT  there  was  a  tremendous  increase  in  im- 
migration in  prospect  was  announced  by  the 
agents  of  the  great  immigrant-carrying  lines 
of  steamships  as  early  as  January  of  1903.  All  Europe 
seemed  stirred  with  that  tide  of  unrest.  It  was  to  be 
a  great  year  for  the  departure  from  the  Continental  hives 
of  the  new  swarms,  and  an  authoritative  foreign  journal 
prophesied  that  the  sum  total  would  be  1,500,000  for 
the  twelve  months. 

In  America  the  cry  was  redoubled  that  the  doors  of 
the  United  States  should  be  altogether  closed  or  ren- 
dered still  more  difficult  to  pass.  The  Shattuc  bill  was 
about  to  find  favor  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
the  Lodge  bill  was  cooking  in  Boston,  and  in  every 
newspaper  or  periodical  of  the  land  articles  and  edito- 
rials were  appearing  that  attacked  or  defended  various 
phases,  conditions  or  proposed  remedies  of  immigra- 
tion. Even  in  the  German  and  Italian  papers,  which 
speak  for  Germany,  Austria  and  Italy,  the  most  fertile 
immigrant-producing  grounds,  there  was  but  the  barest 
trifle  printed  that  was  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  im- 
migrant himself.  In  the  American  papers  there  was 
absolutely  nothing. 

One  day  I  was  in  the  Grand  Central  station  in  New 
York,  ready  to  take  a  train  for  New  Haven,  and  as  I 
came  up  to  the  gate  I  saw,  passing  through  before  me, 
a  group  of  more  than  twenty  newly  arrived  Italians, 
following  the  leadership  of  one  short,  black,  thick-set 


2        IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

prosperous-seeming  man  who  spoke  Italian  to  the  left 
and  broken  English  to  the  right.  They  were  tagged 
for  Boston  and  other  New  England  towns,  and,  bear- 
ing their  heavy  burdens  of  luggage  and  bundles,  with 
faces  drawn  with  weariness,  eyes  dull  with  too  much 
gazing  at  the  wonders  of  a  new  land,  with  scarce  a 
smile  among  them  except  on  the  faces  of  the  unreason- 
ing children,  they  were  herded  together,  counted  off  as 
they  passed  through  the  gate  and  taken  aboard  the  train, 
much  as  if  they  had  been  some  sort  of  animals  worth 
more  than  ordinary  care,  instead  of  rational  human  be- 
ings. Here  they  were  in  charge  of  the  conductor,  who 
grouped  them  in  seats  according  to  the  towns  to  which 
they  were  destined. 

When  I  was  seated  and  had  unfolded  my  paper  the 
first  thing  that  caught  my  eye  was  an  article  in  which 
a  noted  sociologist  was  liberally  quoted  recommending 
the  total  suspension  of  immigration  for  three  years  and 
then  new  laws  admitting  only  those  who  would  come 
with  their  families  and  were  trained  in  some  work  de- 
manding skill.  The  arguments  were  specious,  but  as  I 
looked  over  the  top  of  the  paper  at  the  poor  creatures 
huddled  in  the  car  seats  about,  very  thinly  dressed  for 
so  cold  a  January  day,  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  true 
light,  the  revelation  of  the  natural  remedies  and  the  only 
real  understanding  of  the  immigrant  situation  lay  in 
seeing  from  the  underside,  in  getting  the  immigrants' 
point  of  view  to  compare  with  the  public-spirited 
American  one. 

That  was  the  leaven  and  it  grew.  The  idea  ramified 
into  a  plan,  and  this  plan  was  laid  before  Mr.  Ellery  Sedg- 
wick, the  editor  of  Leslie's  Monthly,  and  very  soon  it 
was  decided  that  1  was  to  go  seeking  the  immigrants' 
point  of  view  and  was  to  take  my  wife  with  me. 


IMPETUS   AND   THE   METHOD   3 

All  of  the  intricacies  of  how,  where  and  just  what, 
evolved  slowly,  but  this  in  brief  was  our  general  plan: 
First  of  all  we  must  choose  the  ground  for  our  investi- 
gation. Since  Italy  sends  not  only  three  times  more 
immigrants  than  any  other  country,  but  a  larger 
proportion  of  the  sort  that  are  objected  to  in 
America,  it  was  plain  that  our  work  lay  among  the 
Italians.  We  must  know  the  language  well  enough  to 
ask  questions  and  understand  answers;  we  must  know 
the  conditions  of  Italian  life  in  America  in  order  to  know 
what  good  and  what  evil  things  to  trace  to  their  sources. 
To  understand  the  people  properly,  we  must  live  with 
them  and  be  of  them,  and,  to  get  the  fullest  grasp  on  the 
process  of  their  transmutation  we  must  become  immi- 
grants ourselves  and  re-enter  our  own  country  as 
strangers  and  aliens. 

Therefore  we  must  take  up  our  abode  in  the  Italian 
quarter,  and,  when  duly  prepared  and  informed,  voyage 
to  the  home  land  with  some  of  the  returning  Italians 
and,  having  learned  the  actual  conditions  there,  come 
back  in  the  steerage  and  pass  through  Ellis  Island, 
bringing  with  us  some  typical  immigrant  family  whose 
exact  circumstances  we  had  fully  learned  in  their  na- 
tive community.  Using  them  as  a  central  strand  we 
would  weave  a  story  of  small  things  that  should  be 
worthy  of  being  taken  into  reckoning  by  thinking 
minds,  as  a  new  and  important  fund  of  informa- 
tion. 

Though  we  knew  full  well  the  hardships  which  we 
must  endure  for  many  long  months,  the  difficulties 
which  would  arise  like  forbidding  barriers,  I  am 
free  to  say  that  the  things  on  which  we  had  counted 
and  against  which  we  had  armed  ourselves  did  not 
come  to  pass  for  the  most  part;  while  a  multitude  of 


4        IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

things  happened  that  were  as  unexpected  as  gold  in 
breakfast  food. 

Work  began  at  once,  by  the  book,  on  the  language, 
and  while  in  the  wilds  of  Yucatan  in  February  we 
were  studying  Italian.  In  March  we  landed  in  New 
York  late  one  night  from  the  Ward  liner  Monterey,  and 
the  very  next  day  went  into  the  Italian  quarter  seeking 
a  place  to  live.  When  we  had  been  in  the  reeking 
streets,  amid  the  tumult  of  innumerable  children,  and 
had  entered  a  few  of  the  tenements,  my  wife  turned 
pale  and  sick  and  said: 

"Don't  think  I  am  faltering  at  the  threshold;  but, 
please,  if  we  must  go  through  all  this,  let  us  have  a 
week  of  comfort  and  preparation.  Then  we  will  take 
the  plunge." 

Thus  I  knew  how  much  harder  it  was  for  her,  with 
all  her  love  of  comfort  and  her  accustomedness  to  it, 
to  forsake  it  for  any  purpose,  however  important  or 
worth  while,  than  it  was  for  me,  who,  manlike,  enjoy 
"  the  fare  of  the  field,  and  the  habit  of  the  strange  land." 
And  thereafter,  particularly  when  we  were  in  the  steer- 
age of  the  Priniessin  Irene  and  were  bound  home,  ac- 
tually counting  the  half-hours  of  the  twelve-day  voy- 
age amid  utter  wretchedness,  never  did  I  hear  one  com- 
plaint from  her  lips  or  did  she  give  other  sign  of  failing. 

At  the  very  outset  we  had  difficulty  in  gaining  ad- 
mission to  any  all-Italian  house.  In  the  tenements 
where  several  rooms  were  to  be  had,  the  Italian  real- 
estate  agents  eyed  us  with  suspicion  and  averred 
solemnly  that  they  were  all  full,  even  to  the  roof.  This 
they  asserted,  notwithstanding  empty  apartments  to  be 
seen  from  the  street  and  "  Rooms  to  Let"  signs  with- 
out number.  In  the  boarding  houses  we  were  met 
with  a  very  cold  reception  even  before  it  was  known 


IMPETUS   AND   THE   METHOD   5 

what  we  wanted.  In  the  Italian  hotels  it  was  the  same 
way  with  the  exception  of  one  south  of  Washington 
Square,  and  there  the  proprietor  kindly  offered  to  let  us 
in  at  twice  the  ordinary  price,  according  to  the  rates 
tacked  on  the  room  doors.  At  last,  however,  we  came 
to  the  domicile  of  the  Chevalier  Celestin  Tonella.  Here 
we  found  our  haven. 

It  was  some  time  after  we  were  settled  before  we 
learned  that  we  were  under  the  roof  of  a  nobleman.  If 
we  had  been  familiar  with  the  nice  distinctions  of  Ital- 
ian caste,  however,  we  should  have  known  it  instantly. 
The  three  houses  Nos.  141,  145,  147  West  Houston 
Street,  entered  by  the  door  of  No.  147,  seemed  to  us 
very  little  different  from  many  of  the  other  tenements 
in  which  we  had  been,  and  indeed  they  were  not.  The 
difference  all  lay  in  the  master  not  in  the  mansion.  If 
I  had  known  before  paying  my  rent  in  advance  that  my 
landlord  had  a  title,  I  should  have  demurred,  thinking 
that  in  his  house  there  would  be  life  a  little  too  high  in 
grade  for  the  real  Italian  quarter;  but  before  I  knew 
the  Chevalier's  station,  I  had  learned  that  we  were 
in  the  proper  element  and  surrounded  by  the  very 
atmosphere  we  sought,  though  the  same  at  meal  times 
would  have  almost  killed  a  strong  man  in  his  prime. 

Just  before  we  gained  admittance  to  the  desired  quar- 
ters we  were  in  the  office  of  a  real-estate  man  who  has 
an  exclusively  Italian  custom  in  the  lower  West  Side 
quarter,  renting  to  people  of  his  own  race  and  tongue 
houses  owned  by  wealthy  people  up-town.  When  he 
had  refused  to  give  us  an  opportunity  at  anything  on 
his  lists  I  said  to  him: 

"See  here.  We  have  been  hunting  rooms  all  day. 
We  have  been  frustrated  from  Mulberry  Street  to  Fif- 
teenth.    I  have  got  money  and  can  give  references, 


6        IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

but  nobody  seems  to  care  about  either.  What  is  the 
matter  ?    Why  can  we  not  get  into  an  Italian  house  ?" 

"Scoose  me,  mister,  bot  wye  youse  want  to  ?" 

"  We  want  to  live  with  Italians  in  order  to  learn  to 
speak  Italian  properly.  " 

"Yes,  all  ri — ght.  I  don'  know  wye."  A  shrug  of 
the  shoulders  and  a  side  glance  with  dropped  eyes. 
"  Mebbe  Eyetayun  peoples  sink-a  youse  try  to  fin'  a 
out  somesings,  mebbe  don'  a  want  somebodys  fin' 
youse.     Youse  knows  deys-a  only  dirty  dagoes." 

This  last  was  said  with  a  bitterness  which  showed 
clearly  how  well  the  Italians  understand  the  tolerant, 
semi-contemptuous  regard  of  Americans  towards  them 
and  how  keenly  they  resent  it.  I  understood  at  once 
how  and  why  they  suspected  us  because  we,  who  were 
obviously  "Americans  proper"  as  they  nicely  express 
the  difference  between  the  native  and  imported  Ameri- 
can, desired  to  come  and  make  our  home  among  them. 
Only  a  knowledge  that  the  persons  are  still  living  and 
a  wholesome  respect  for  the  libel  law  prevent  me 
from  telling  how  well  founded  were  the  suspicions 
among  the  Italians  of  the  "Americans  proper"  who 
lived  about  us  later. 

Thus,  to  begin  with  we  were  met  by  the  barrier  of 
suspicion  and  misunderstanding  raised  against  us  by  all 
our  neighbors.  We  had  to  overcome  it  carefully  or  do 
our  work  in  spite  of  it. 


CHAPTER  II 

LIFE  IN  A  NEW  YORK  ITALIAN  TENEMENT 

OUR  room  was  about  seven  feet  wide  and 
twelve  long.  It  was  half  of  a  room  of  ordi- 
nary size  that  had  been  cut  nicely  in  two  by 
a  partition,  and  had  a  sort  of  small  extension  at  the 
back  that  looked  out  on  the  rear  of  the  house.  It  was 
barely  possible  to  get  by  the  bed  in  order  to  pass  from 
the  door  to  the  rear  window.  The  bed  itself,  while  not 
being  a  geometrical  point,  had  neither  length,  breadth, 
nor  thickness.  In  one  corner  was  a  small  cook-stove, 
that  should  have  been  under  pension.  There  was  a 
small  table  in  the  tiny  extension,  covered  with  a  dark- 
patterned  piece  of  oilcloth.  A  careful  inspection  of 
it  showed  me  that  dark  oilcloth  has  certain  advantages 
over  light.  A  kerosene  lamp  with  a  discouragingly 
short  wick  stood  on  an  imitation  marble  mantelpiece 
that  was  a  relic  of  the  days  of  the  old  mansion's 
former  glory. 

We  contrived  to  get  one  steamer  trunk  under  the  bed, 
and  as  soon  as  we  could  sort  out  articles  of  essential 
wear,  the  others  drifted  to  that  place  of  uncertainty 
called  "storage." 

Some  little  time  after  we  had  entered  the  house  we 
were  able  to  get  a  room  twice  the  size  on  the  top  floor, 
and  we  contrived  to  dispose  ourselves  with  some  de- 
gree of  comfort.  Aside  from  the  size  and  the  addition 
of  a  good  bed,  the  room  and  furnishings  of  our  second 
chamber  agreed  with  the  first. 


8        IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

During  the  time  we  lived  there  we  dressed  in  such  a 
manner  as  not  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  people 
about  us  to  the  fact  that  we  were  not  of  them,  only 
keeping  with  us  apparel  for  use  when  we  indulged  our- 
selves in  an  evening's  relaxation  from  the  hard  life  and 
stole  away  up-town  for  a  bite  of  something  good  to 
eat  and  the  cheer  of  the  voices  of  friends  speaking  un- 
adulterated English. 

The  first  night  we  were  in  the  house  we  were  very 
weary  with  the  operation  of  shifting  bases  and  change 
of  station  in  life,  and,  finding  it  almost  impossible  to  read 
by  the  light  of  the  lamp,  we  sought  repose  about  ten 
o'clock;  but  just  about  that  time  from  the  floor  below 
us,  where  we  could  hear  the  babel  of  the  voices  of  men 
and  women,  as  it  were  a  family  party  or  something  of 
the  sort,  there  began  to  come  a  series  of  vocal  explo- 
sions. It  seemed  to  be  two  or  more  men  shouting 
single  words  at  each  other  in  concert.  They  enun- 
ciated with  great  energy,  at  first  in  a  repressed  sort  of 
way,  but  after  ten  or  fifteen  words  their  voices  rose  to 
an  alarming  pitch.  Then  would  come  a  pause  filled  in 
with  laughter  and  chatter,  and  once  more  the  word- 
slinging  contest  would  begin.  So  fiercely  were  the 
words  expelled  that  for  a  long  time  we  could  not  tell 
what  they  were.  At  last  we  made  out  "  sei  "  and 
"  otto,"  and  as  it  was  impossible  to  go  to  sleep  with 
so  lively  a  social  function  going  on  below,  I  got  up,  lit 
the  lamp  and  took  up  our  Italian  books.  A  moment's 
consultation  of  the  books  and  a  little  listening  showed 
us  that  they  were  counting,  or  at  least  hurling  numbers 
at  random  at  each  other.  It  was  inexplicable  to  us,  but 
it  was  our  first  glance  into  the  inside  of  Italian  quarter 
life. 

I  was  heartily  glad,  however,  that  the  birthday  party, 


The  Tenement  in  Houston  Street  in  which  the  Author  and 
his  Wife  lived  {The  chimney-shadow  marks  their  room) 


LIFE   IN   A   TENEMENT  9 

christening  or  wedding  anniversary,  whichever  it  was, 
must  surely  be  a  matter  of  rare  occasion. 

Imagine  our  feelings  when  ten  o'clock  the  next  night 
came  and  the  same  rumpus  broke  forth  once  more,  only 
with  greater  vigor.  In  vain  we  conjectured  the  cause. 
Perhaps  they  were  in  the  midst  of  a  week's  celebration 
of  some  church  festival.  Perhaps  there  was  some  sort 
of  a  tournament  on. 

At  last  I  determined  to  investigate.  Though  it  was  a 
wet  night  and  walls,  ledges  and  railings  about  the  rear 
of  the  house  were  dripping  and  slimy,  I  clambered 
down  from  the  back  window  to  a  point  where  1  could 
look  in  below. 

There  were  two  basement  rooms  opening  into  each 
other,  and  there  must  be  a  third  that  opened  onto  the 
street  in  front  of  the  house.  The  first  room  was  a 
much-cluttered  kitchen  with  broken  boxes  of  several 
sorts  of  macaroni  exposed  to  view,  a  well-heated 
range,  a  cook  in  white  clothes,  innumerable  bottles  of 
wine  on  the  shelves  and  dirty  dishes  on  one  side  while 
the  clean  ones  were  in  orderly  piles  on  the  other. 

In  the  second  and  inner  room  there  was  a  thick,  blue 
atmosphere  of  pipe  and  cigar  smoke  through  which 
the  gas  jets  in  the  centre  of  the  room  flared  sharply. 
Around  the  uncovered  tables  of  varying  sizes  were  Ital- 
ians to  the  number  of  a  score  or  more.  More  than  half 
of  them  were  in  rough  working  clothes.  Some  had 
beer,  some  had  wine  before  them  and  some  were  eating 
the  stringing  macaroni  from  large  dishes  heaped  with  it. 
Three  of  them  were  under  the  gaslight  and  were  leaning 
forward  in  postures  of  straining  excitement,  and  as  each 
spoke  a  number  he  thrust  out  one  hand  or  both  with 
fingers  held  out, — three,  four,  seven,  perhaps  only  one. 
All  the  numbers  spoken  were  under  ten,  and  the  num- 


io      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

bers  spoken  did  not  correspond  with  the  numbers  in- 
dicated by  the  fingers.  After  watching  them  a  min- 
ute I  saw  that  each  man  was  trying  to  guess  what 
number  the  other  man  would  indicate  on  his  fingers, 
and  a  correct  guess  ended  each  bout;  then  would  come 
laughter  at  the  expense  of  the  defeated  one,  and  the 
game  would  begin  over  again  for  points. 

Later  inquiry  as  to  the  name  and  popularity  of  the 
game  brought  forth  the  information  that  it  is  called 
mora  and  is  very  general  through  southern  Italy,  be- 
ing a  favorite  diversion  among  the  country  people.  In 
Italy  country  boys  will  get  together  in  a  corner  and 
play  mora  till  they  are  exhausted,  and  in  the  place 
under  us  I  have  known  the  last  hoarsely  shouted  num- 
ber to  sound  after  the  hour  of  three. 

As  I  climbed  back  into  my  own  room  1  took  with 
me  the  satisfying  knowledge  that  we  should  probably 
hear  mora  and  sing-songing  every  night  while  we 
dwelt  in  the  place.  It  was  evidently  a  restaurant  and 
used  as  a  sort  of  club  house  by  a  company  of  the  con- 
vivial and  congenial.  There  was  not  the  slightest  indi- 
cation on  the  street  front  that  the  place  was  anything 
but  an  ordinary  tenement  basement. 

The  commissary  end  of  our  campaign  after  informa- 
tion was  very  weak.  Home  cooking  is  well  enough 
with  facilities.  It  is  a  destroyer  of  peace  and  well-be- 
ing, without  them.  Therefore  we  began  a  series  of 
disastrous  experiments  in  lunching  and  dining  out  in 
first  one  and  then  the  other  Italian  restaurants  there- 
abouts, and  after  a  plucky  and  determined  resistance  to 
the  enemy  we  succumbed.  Our  stomachs  demanded 
time  to  accustom  themselves  to  the  change,  and  so  we 
took  to  Italian  fare  only  in  moderation,  securing  at  last 
an  ability  to  eat  and  enjoy  it. 


LIFE   IN   A   TENEMENT        11 

After  I  had  discovered  that  there  was  a  restaurant  in 
the  basement  of  our  own  house,  I  made  inquiry  of  the 
landlord  as  to  its  desirability,  and  on  his  recommenda- 
tion we  went  in  there  one  day  for  lunch.  We  found 
that,  as  I  had  surmised,  there  was  a  third  room  in  the 
front,  and  in  this  a  large  table  was  set.  At  its  head  was 
an  important-looking  red-bearded  gentleman  whom  I 
knew  was  an  editorre  of  one  of  the  many  small  Ital- 
ian publications  put  forth  in  New  York.  Ranged  down 
each  side  were  men  of  several  sorts.  There  was  an 
animated  conversation  in  progress  as  we  entered,  but 
a  sudden  silence  fell  as  they  saw  us.  Looks  of  sus- 
picion passed,  and  though  they  greeted  us  in  a  con- 
strained sort  of  way  as  we  took  places  at  the  foot  of 
the  table,  I  could  see  that  we  represented  a  note  of  dis- 
cord. The  proprietor,  who  was  cook  as  well,  and  his 
wife  and  sister-in-law  were  effusive  in  their  welcome, 
and  after  we  had  tasted  the  character  of  the  food  I 
felt  that  we  were  nearer  a  solution  of  the  eating  ques- 
tion than  at  any  time  before.  The  men  at  the  table 
were  visibly  relieved  when  they  found  that  we  could 
not  understand  Italian,  and  ventured  remarks  now  and 
then  to  test  our  knowledge.  Some  of  these  were  of 
a  very  personal  nature  concerning  us ;  and,  being  able  to 
understand  some  few  of  the  words  and  phrases,  I 
knew  this  but  behaved  as  if  there  were  no  word  of  all 
they  said  that  had  any  meaning  to  me. 

That  evening  when  we  came  in  for  dinner  we  found 
that  a  little  table  for  the  two  of  us  had  been  put  in  a 
remote  corner  of  the  long  room,  and  though  the  places 
in  which  we  had  been  at  noon  were  empty,  plates  and 
chairs  had  been  removed,  so  that  we  well  knew  "out- 
siders," especially  ladies,  were  not  desired  at  their 
board. 


12      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

Once  they  were  perfectly  sure  we  did  not  understand 
anything  of  which  they  spoke,  they  became  just  as  free 
of  speech  as  they  must  have  been  before.  This  was 
very  fine  for  us.  An  understanding  of  the  good  Italian 
they  spoke,  which  was  barely  sufficient  to  trace  and 
know  the  current  of  conversation,  rapidly  broadened 
into  ability  to  get  more  of  the  full  meaning.  It  was  ill 
for  speaking-practice,  though,  for  we  used  only  English 
in  the  place,  and  I  found  that  if  I  used  the  Italian  that  I 
heard  them  speaking  at  the  table,  to  any  one  outside  in 
other  parts  of  the  Italian  quarter  there  was  an  absolute 
failure  to  understand  me.  At  first  I  thought  this  was 
because  of  my  poor  pronunciation  and  awkward  at- 
tempts, but  the  more  I  listened  the  more  I  learned  that 
we  were  absorbing  better  Italian  than  was  spoken  by 
the  mass  of  Italians  in  New  York,  and  when  I  first  men- 
tioned the  subject  to  an  Italian  friend,  newly  made,  he 
laughingly  explained  that  there  are  about  twenty  va- 
rieties of  Italian  speech,  and  that  in  the  restaurant  in  the 
Houston  Street  basement  I  was  hearing  Milanese  while 
all  about  outside  were  Romans,  Neapolitans,  Genoese, 
Turinese,  Calabrese,  Sicilians,  and  so  on.  Greater 
knowledge  of  the  language  showed  me  that  so  wide 
are  the  differences  that  a  man  from  certain  portions  of 
the  north  of  Italy  is  almost  unable  to  converse  with  a 
man  from  the  south,  even  if  willing  to  do  so.  There 
is  the  bitterest  sectional  feeling,  and  people  of  different 
provinces  are  constantly  arrayed  against  each  other.  I 
found  this  feeling  very  strong  between  the  Calabrese 
and  the  Sicilian. 

The  men  who  took  lunch  at  the  basement  restaurant 
were  of  a  more  intelligent  class  than  those  who  came 
there  at  night,  and  so,  as  we  came  to  understand  more 
each  day,  we  began  to  learn  more  and  more  of  the  very 


Mrs.  Brandenburg  in  Her  wretched  Tenement-room 


LIFE   IN   A   TENEMENT        13 

facts  of  inside  life  among  Italians  for  which  we 
were  seeking. 

I  do  not  know  that  we  got  so  much  well-rounded 
information  from  their  chance  conversation  as  tips  on 
the  things  for  which  to  be  on  the  lookout.  Some  lit- 
tle things  in  particular  that  had  no  bearing  on  generali- 
ties are  contained  in  the  following  incidents. 

Gossip  one  day  told  me  that  a  certain  editor  of  an 
Italian  newspaper  of  some  standing  had  written  a 
scathing  article  directed  against  Mr.  Frank  Munsey,  at 
that  time  the  new  owner  of  the  News,  and  William 
Randolph  Hearst  of  the  American  and  Journal.  He  had 
said  things  which  he  felt  sure  would  make  both  of 
those  gentlemen  get  down  their  rapiers  and  do  battle 
either  editorially  or  in  person.  He  hoped  it  would  be 
both,  as  he  felt  he  had  a  righteous  cause  and  needed  the 
advertising.  The  day  his  editorial  was  published  he 
stayed  close  to  the  telephone  all  day  in  his  office  expect- 
ing a  telephone  message  ftom  one  or  the  other.  When 
the  papers  of  both  attacked  editors  appeared  next  day 
without  even  a  one-line  hint  of  the  deadly  blow  which 
had  been  dealt  them,  the  Italian  editor  very  nearly  fell 
to  the  floor  in  a  frothing  rage.  For  an  hour  he  raved 
like  a  wild  man  and  was  only  calmed  by  the  assurance 
from  a  cool-headed  friend  that  both  were  preparing 
overwhelming  answers  for  their  print  next  day,  so  he 
settled  himself  to  write  what  he  thought  would  be  an 
anticipation  of  their  replies.  Not  a  sign  did  the  two 
smitten  ones  give,  and  it  was  not  long  before  some  one 
found  out  through  friends  in  the  offices  of  both  papers 
that  in  neither  had  either  the  first  or  second  assaults  in 
the  Italian  journal  even  been  so  much  as  heard  of. 

One  of  the  men  at  the  table  had  his  father  in  this 
country  with  him,  and  the  father,  having  been  here  two 


14      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

years  and  saved  $600  working  in  a  piano  factory  for 
$1.40  per  day,  wished  to  return  to  Italy  to  spend  his 
last  days  and,  desiring  to  save  his  passage  money,  had 
followed  the  example  of  another  old  man  and  arranged 
to  get  himself  deported.  I  listened  closely  and  heard 
the  son  telling  with  great  amusement  how  "feeble" 
the  old  man  became  when  he  went  to  make  his  appli- 
cation for  deportation  as  an  alien  who  was  unable  to 
support  himself  in  America  because  of  age  and  ill  health. 

At  another  time  a  newcomer  at  the  table  related  to  an 
interested  audience  what  had  been  told  him  of  the 
very  wild  condition  of  the  country  even  so  far  east  as 
Kentucky.  He  gave  some  instances  of  a  feud,  that  had 
been  generally  printed  a  short  time  before,  as  if  they 
were  the  actual  doings  of  hordes  of  savages  in  the 
mountains.  He  may  not  have  been  as  far  wrong  as  it 
seems  at  first  glance,  of  course,  but  the  incident  aptly 
illustrated  how  little  conception  the  mass  of  otherwise 
well-informed  aliens  have  of  the  great  country  which 
is  giving  them  more  of  comfort,  liberty  and  opportu- 
nity than  they  have  ever  had  before. 

Our  landlord  and  his  wife  represented  a  class  which 
is  taken  all  too  slightly  into  account  by  those  Americans 
who  are  interested  in  the  immigration  question;  for  it 
has  an  influence  which,  while  positive  in  few  things 
and  negative  in  many,  is  nevertheless  very  strong  and 
powerfully  affects  the  destinies  of  Italians  in  America. 

The  Chevalier  Celestin  Tonella  is  a  man  of  striking 
presence.  He  is  large  and  heavy  and  has  the  erect 
bearing  of  a  soldier.  He  has  the  dominant  nose  and 
the  composed  air  of  one  accustomed  to  command. 
The  time  was  when  he  stood  well  up  in  the  army.  His 
exact  rank  I  never  learned. 

His  wife  is  a  small,  slender,  gray-haired  woman  with 


LIFE   IN   A   TENEMENT        15 

the  unmistakable  stamp  of  the  gentlewoman  upon  her, 
and  she  speaks  a  number  of  languages  as  well  as  having 
the  deft-finger  gift  of  making,  painting,  broidering  and 
sewing,  as  is  the  way  with  Italian  women  of  position. 

Of  their  story  1  know  nothing,  except  that  once  she 
was  in  the  patronage  of  a  duchess  and  was  at  court, 
and  he  was  also  in  favor  with  the  high  and  mighty;  but 
now  they  are  running  Nos.  141,  145  and  147  Houston 
Street  for  a  living  and  are  here  in  America  with  no  plans 
for  going  back  to  Italy.  How  or  why  they  came,  who 
knows  ?  So  far  as  the  interests  of  this  work  are  con- 
cerned 1  do  not  care,  and  have  introduced  them  in  so 
personal  a  fashion  only  because  they  are  so  typical  a 
family  of  better-class  Italians  emigrated  to  America. 
Last  year  the  number  of  alien  immigrants  landed  in  the 
United  States  who  were  able  to  come  in  the  cabin  in- 
stead of  in  the  steerage  was  64,269  and  the  year  pre- 
vious 82,055.  Of  this  number  more  than  one  third 
were  Italians. 

In  my  personal  acquaintance  among  Italians  in  New 
York  there  is  a  man  who  was  formerly  a  priest  in 
Rome  and  is  now  a  saloon-keeper  and  banker  on  the 
East  Side;  another  man  who  has  four  titles  and  an  un- 
enviable record  in  Genoa,  Milan,  Venice,  Paris  and 
Vienna,  who  owns  three  barber-shops  up-town  and  two 
resorts  in  Elizabeth  Street  capitalized  with  the  patri- 
mony of  a  young  gentlewoman  of  Udine  who  followed 
him  to  America  when  his  family  had  cast  him  off  and 
it  was  too  hot  for  him  to  remain  in  Italy,  France  or  Aus- 
tria; a  third  man  who  is  a  banker  not  far  from  where 
we  lived  who  is  conducting  a  flourishing  "padrone" 
business  founded  on  funds  which  he  abstracted  while 
an  official  in  Naples  before  that  city  was  bankrupted  by 
its  rulers. 


16      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

There  are  three.  I  could  give  a  number  more,  but 
those  will  suffice.  The  point  in  the  whole  considera- 
tion is  that  the  lower  class  Italians  in  this  country  con- 
tinue to  pay  the  respect  and  homage  to  those  of  their 
race  who  have  been  born  to  position,  without  regard  to 
the  changed  and  democratic  conditions  under  which 
both  gentleman  and  peasant  are  now  living. 

An  Italian  of  humble  birth  who  may  have  prospered 
in  this  country  and  have  risen  to  a  position  of  com- 
mercial and  political  eminence  among  New  Yorkers 
will  cringe  unhesitatingly  to  some  worthless  scamp  who 
chances  to  be  well  born.  I  have  seen  this  instanced 
many  times  and  in  various  ways.  Twenty  years  of 
residence  and  fifteen  of  citizenship  in  the  United  States 
will  change  the  average  Italian  into  a  very  American 
sort  of  person,  but  I  know  to  a  certainty  that  he  will 
suffer  silently  at  the  hands  of  a  countryman  of  superior 
birth  what  he  would  not  submit  to  for  one  minute  from 
an  American  no  matter  what  might  be  the  latter's  sta- 
tion in  life.     It  is  certainly  a  curious  fact. 

In  general  it  is  safe  to  say  that  half  of  the  Italians 
from  the  better  classes  who  come  to  America  are  far 
more  undesirable  than  any  of  the  lower-class  immi- 
grants except  that  certain  class  of  habitual  criminals 
who  are  doing  so  much  to  get  their  race  despised  by 
honest,  clean-handed  Americans. 

One  of  their  worst  influences  is  to  retard  the  assimi- 
lation of  their  people  by  the  great  American  body  politic, 
by  refusing  to  be  themselves  assimilated,  even  going 
so  far  as  to  send  their  children  to  private  schools  in  or- 
der that  they  may  not  learn  English,  and  in  insisting  on 
wearing  clothes  of  imported  make  or  pattern.  They 
are  by  birth,  tradition  and  intent  the  leaders  of  Italian 
communities  in  this  country,  and  their  prejudices  and 


LIFE   IN   A   TENEMENT        17 

examples  confuse  if  not  entirely  divert  the  natural  social 
development  of  their  humbler  countrymen  all  about 
them. 

Many  of  them  are  estimable,  as  are  Chevalier  Tonella 
and  his  clever,  cheery  wife,  but  their  influence  is  nega- 
tively wrong. 

One  evening  I  was  sitting  with  an  Italian  carpenter, 
a  friend  of  the  landlord's,  in  a  corner  of  a  Thompson 
Street  saloon,  and  we  were  discussing  the  effect  of  union- 
labor  regulations  on  the  labor  of  immigrants  and  the 
way  in  which  skilled  masons,  carpenters,  cabinet-mak- 
ers, smiths,  etc.,  are  forced  to  become  peddlers,  com- 
mon laborers,  bootblacks,  etc.,  instead  of  having  op- 
portunities to  follow  their  trades,  when  we  were  inter- 
rupted by  the  sudden  appearance  of  a  very  excited 
man.  He  was  a  young  barber,  flushed  with  wine  and 
good  fortune.  He  burst  into  the  room  with  a  shout 
and  a  rattle  of  oaths  and  slammed  down  a  handful  of 
mixed  money  on  a  table. 

The  people  about  were  saying  so  much  and  deliver- 
ing it  in  so  short  a  time  that  it  was  a  full  five  minutes 
before  they  began  conversation  piano  enough  for 
me  to  get  the  idea.  The  young  barber  had  won 
three  hundred  dollars  at  lotto  and  had  just  re- 
ceived it. 

I  knew  that  in  Italy  nearly  every  block  in  the  cities 
has  its  banco  di  lotto  run  by  the  government  and 
supposed  that  the  young  chap  had  been  playing  the 
lottery  from  this  side  and  had  won  but  I  soon  learned 
that  the  national  love  of  lotto  gambling  has  been 
transplanted  to  America,  and  that  since  the  laws  here 
forbid  lotteries  the  Italians  of  the  country  are  forced 
to  run  them  under  cover,  and  do  so  very  successfully. 
After  that  I  often  heard  of  plays  made  by  my  friends 


18      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

and  of  winnings  now  and  then  by  people  I  did  not  know, 
but  never  at  any  time  was  I  able  to  fathom  the  method 
by  which  the  business  was  carried  on.  Instead  of  be- 
ing officially  conducted  by  any  society,  each  lottery  is 
entirely  a  private  venture,  and  its  patronage  is  confined 
to  those  who  are  compare  as  the  dialect  has  it.  It 
is  a  word  difficult  to  render  into  English,  but  all  those 
Italians  who  come  from  one  town  or  province  and  have 
mutual  interests  and  trust  each  other  are  compare. 
Not  only  does  this  freemasonry  exist  as  to  lotto,  but 
it  pervades  all  their  other  social  relations.  It  is  a  potent 
force  never  reckoned  with  among  those  who  persist  in 
misunderstanding  the  "dirty  dago." 

Very  soon  after  we  had  taken  up  our  residence  in  the 
quarter  I  found  out  the  true  reason  for  the  prospect  of 
an  enormously  increased  immigration  for  1903.  The 
ponderous  articles  and  profoundly  wise  comments  on 
the  question  had  attributed  it  to  a  number  of  things. 
Among  these  were:  an  increasing  demand  for  labor  that 
made  a  market  for  the  immigrants'  muscles,  advertis- 
ing efforts  on  the  part  of  competing  steamship  lines, 
oppression  of  the  Jews,  deflection  of  German  emigra- 
tion from  South  America  to  North  America,  increased 
taxes  and  failure  of  crops  in  southern  Europe.  Balder- 
dash and  folly  !  The  truth  was  that  every  man  who 
had  any  relatives  to  bring  over  to  the  United  States  had 
read  of  the  new  strictures  in  immigration  laws  that 
impended  and  was  straining  every  nerve  to  bring  them 
and  get  them  passed  before  the  new  laws  could  be 
passed  and  put  into  effect.  Thousands  and  thousands 
of  people  whom  the  laws  would  not  have  affected  in 
the  least  came  this  last  year  when  if  there  had  been  no 
change  of  legislation  in  prospect,  they  would  have 
waited  a  year  or  two  more.     I  know  personally  of  a 


LIFE   IN   A   TENEMENT        19 

score  of  families  whose  plans  were  affected  by  this 
very  thing  and  by  no  other  consideration. 

It  should  be  remarked  at  this  stage  that  one  of  the 
first  things  I  learned  among  the  Italians  (and  I  knew 
later  that  it  extended  to  all  races)  was  that  the  alien 
considers  the  United  States  code  of  immigration  laws 
a  very  complex,  fearsome  and  inexplicable  thing,  to  be 
thoroughly  respected  but  if  possible,  evaded. 

More  than  once  I  have  been  asked  the  following 
question  which  bears  its  own  token: 

"  If  a  man  and  his  family  are  good  enough  to  live 
in  Italy,  why  are  they  not  good  enough  to  live  in  the 
United  States?" 

The  records  of  immigrants  who  have  gone  insane 
either  on  shipboard  or  in  Ellis  Island,  or  have  broken 
down  as  soon  as  ever  they  were  safely  landed  in  the 
United  States,  are  striking  proof  of  how  persons  entirely 
within  the  bounds  of  the  laws  worry  over  the  chance 
of  exclusion. 

One  day  after  we  had  changed  into  our  third-floor 
room  we  heard  a  frightful  row  among  the  neighbors 
below.  A  moment's  listening  showed  that  some 
woman  was  berating  a  little  girl,  and  some  man  was 
interposing  in  the  child's  behalf.  I  suppose  it  was  a 
man  and  his  wife  and  the  eldest  of  their  three  girls, 
who  lived  on  that  floor.  I  cannot  give  the  entire 
conversation,  but  the  following  extract  will  tell  the 
story: 

Said  the  mother  in  very  forcible  Tuscan: 

"  You  shall  speak  Italian  and  nothing  else,  if  I  must 
kill  you ;  for  what  will  your  grandmother  say  when  you 
go  back  to  the  old  country,  if  you  talk  this  pig's  Eng- 
lish?" 

"  Aw,  gwan !   Youse  tink  I  'm  goin'  to  talk  dago  'n'  be 


20      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

called  a  guinea!  Not  on  your  life.  1  'm  'n  American,  I 
am,  'n'  you  go  way  back  'n'  sit  down." 

The  mother  evidently  understood  the  reply  well 
enough,  for  she  poured  forth  a  torrent  of  Italian  mixed 
with  strange  misplaced  American  oaths,  and  then  the 
father  ended  matters  by  saying  in  mixed  Italian  and 
English: 

"Shut  up,  both  of  you.  I  wish  I  spoke  English  like 
the  children  do." 

A  very  sensible  German  whom  I  know,  a  man  of 
good  education  and  holding  an  important  position  in 
the  Ward  line,  has  often  told  me  that  he  was  compelled 
to  learn  to  speak  good  English  in  order  to  keep  from 
being  laughed  at  by  his  children,  who  contrived  to  es- 
cape correction  whenever  he  used  broken  English  in 
arraigning  them. 

One  of  our  methods  of  investigation  was  to  go  from 
one  place  of  business  to  another  in  the  quarter  and,  if 
possible,  buy  some  trifle,  meanwhile  asking  questions. 
We  found  that  it  is  usually  the  children  who  do  the 
reading,  writing,  interpreting  and  accounting  in  English 
for  their  parents,  and  an  extremely  bright  and  quick 
lot  of  youngsters  they  seemed  to  be.  In  some  places 
we  saw  startling  contrasts  between  the  two  genera- 
tions: one  rooted  in  all  that  is  Italian  and  absolutely  un- 
able to  allow  themselves  to  be  absorbed  and  assimilated 
and  the  other  intensely  and  thoroughly  American  in 
every  idea  and  mannerism.  It  would  be  easy  to  un- 
derstand how  this  could  be  so  had  these  same  children 
been  well  mixed  with  native-born  children,  but  in  all 
that  community  and  in  the  schools  they  attended  the 
percentage  of  Italians  was  so  great  that  one  would  have 
thought  it  was  the  native-born  children  who  would 
have  been  swallowed  up  in  Italianism.     It  is  a  remark- 


LIFE   IN   A   TENEMENT        21 

able  fact  that  the  Italian  children  insist  on  learning  and 
speaking  English  alone,  though  it  is  not  the  native 
tongue  of  more  than  one  in  ten  persons  about  them. 

One  of  the  general  conditions,  to  the  true  significance 
of  which  our  attention  was  called  by  the  conversation 
of  the  midday  gathering  around  the  table  in  the  Hous- 
ton Street  basement,  is  the  pernicious  system  of  Italian 
"banks."  They  are  scattered  everywhere  through  the 
Italian  colonies  of  New  York,  Boston,  Buffalo,  Pitts- 
burg, Philadelphia,  etc.,  and,  being  ultra-parasitical  in 
their  nature,  their  harmful  agencies  may  be  imagined. 

In  Greater  New  York,  and  in  its  New  Jersey  purlieus 
which  are  so  closely  connected  that  they  pulse  with  the 
life  of  the  great  city,  there  are  412  Italian  banks  with 
charters  to  do  banking  business  and  fully  as  many  more 
that  operate  without  charters.  Many  of  these  are  com- 
bination businesses,  money  exchanges,  steamship-ticket 
offices  and  banks,  groceries  and  banks,  saloons  and 
banks,  and  often  only  the  patrons  are  aware  that  there 
is  a  banking  business  at  all. 

Furthermore  the  banking  business  is  conducted  on  a 
very  different  basis  from  that  usual  in  American  banks 
of  the  various  grades.  Every  employer  of  Italian  labor 
in  New  York  city  knows  that  if  he  wishes  to  get  a  gang 
of  men  quickly  to  go  to  a  job  of  work  he  need  only 
telephone  to  an  Italian  bank.  It  will  be  found  to  be  a 
very  effective  employment  bureau.  I  have  known  spe- 
cific instances  where  two  large  corporations,  one  com- 
mercial and  the  other  industrial,  being  suddenly  in  need 
of  labor,  sent  to  Italian  banks  and  got  gangs  of  men. 
In  the  one  instance  the  commercial  corporation  agreed 
to  pay  the  bank  $7.20  per  week  per  man,  and  the  men 
received  from  the  bank  $5  per  week  each.  In  another 
the  industrial  corporation  paid  $1.50  per  day,  and  the 


22      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

men  got  $1.10.  Three  banks  were  concerned  in  the 
two  cases.  I  learned  of  the  low  wage  from  the  men, 
and  in  answer  to  my  questions  they  told  me  that  they 
were  under  the  control  of  the  bank.  So  I  made  inquiry 
of  the  two  corporations  and  ascertained  the  above 
facts. 

It  is  unwise  and  unjust  to  say  that  all  of  the  little  Ital- 
ian banks  are  conducted  on  these  lines  or  indulge  in  the 
following  practices.  There  are  many  which  are  con- 
ducted by  honorable,  trustworthy  men;  but  the  greater 
number  are  the  arbiters  of  the  welfare  of  the  Italian 
laborer  in  this  country.  They  "  bureauize  "  him  pri- 
vately, as  the  Italian  government  is  endeavoring  and  fail- 
ing to  do  officially.  The  poverty-pinched  Italian  peasant 
who  is  minded  to  come  to  America,  earn  a  few  hundred 
dollars  and  return  can  go  to  a  money-lender  at  home  and 
deliver  himself  into  his  hands.  His  fare  will  be  lent  to 
him,  with  other  necessary  money,  at  a  usurious  rate,  fre- 
quently with  no  security  save  that  the  peasant,  often 
unable  to  read  or  write  and  densely  ignorant  of  what 
awaits  him,  is  consigned  to  the  Italian  bank  in  America 
of  which  the  money  lender  is  a  correspondent.  When 
he  reaches  Ellis  Island  he  is  met  by  his  "cousin,"  the 
bank's  representative,  and  is  duly  discharged  to  him  in 
New  York  or  shipped  to  him  by  rail.  If  he  has  any 
money  of  his  own,  he  deposits  it  in  the  bank;  the  bank 
lends  him  more  money  if  he  needs  it;  the  bank  finds 
his  place  to  sleep  and  eat;  the  bank  sees  that  he  has  a 
doctor  if  he  needs  one;  and  in  a  day  or  two  the  ignorant 
peasant  with  others  of  his  kind  is  despatched  to  work 
in  the  Subway,  steve  on  the  docks,  excavate  for 
new  buildings,  delve  in  the  mines,  or  whatever  the 
work  may  be,  fulfilling  the  agreement  which  the  bank 
has  made  to  deliver  labor.     This  is  an  evasion  of  the 


LIFE   IN   A   TENEMENT        23 

letter  of  the  contract  alien  labor  law  and  a  flagrant  vio- 
lation of  its  spirit. 

The  bank,  furthermore,  is  usually  owned  entirely  or  at 
least  controlled  by  one  man.  It  is  the  laborer's  address 
for  his  mail  from  home.  It  writes  his  letters  for  him  if 
he  is  unable  to  write.  It  forwards  his  savings  home, 
minus  a  percentage.  It  holds  his  passport  and  any  other 
valuable  papers  and  in  every  way  makes  itself  so  es- 
sential to  him  that  it  has  him  entirely  in  its  control. 
Often  he  realizes  that  it  does  this  for  from  five  to  thirty 
per  cent  of  his  wages;  more  often  he  never  knows  how 
much  short  of  his  full  due  he  is  getting.  Worst  of  all 
are  the  naturalization  frauds,  the  wholesale  political  mal- 
franchisements  and  increase  of  temporary  immigration. 
In  the  last-named  matter  the  banker  rarely  fails  to  urge 
the  immigrant  to  return  to  Italy  after  he  has  saved  two 
or  three  hundred  dollars,  because  he  will  sell  the  immi- 
grant his  ticket  home,  clear  the  scores,  realize  his  profits 
and  be  able  to  fill  the  place  of  the  departing  man  with 
one  who  is  "greener  "  and  yet  more  ignorant.  When 
the  Italian  has  been  here  a  year  or  two  he  begins  to  be 
difficult  for  the  banker  to  handle,  unless  he  be  of  that 
number  who  are  born  to  be  driven  and  sold  like  cattle. 

As  I  have  said  there  are  many  very  worthy  men  en- 
gaged in  banking  and  agency  businesses  among  Italians, 
but  there  is  a  notable  number  who  are  born  thieves  and 
swindlers  and  have  records  at  home  which  prevent 
their  enjoyment  of  the  balmy  air  of  Italy  for  even  one 
brief  day.  This  matter  is  not  overlooked  at  home.  A 
joke  in  one  of  the  Roman  comic  papers  printed  not  long 
ago  attests  that. 

A  cashiered  army  officer  is  pictured  as  meeting  a  de- 
faulting office-holder  just  emerging  from  a  term  in 
prison.     This  is  the  dialogue: 


24      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

Army  Officer.— "What  is  the  game  now  ?  An  hon- 
est life?" 

Late  Office-holder  .—"No,  I  think  I  shall  open  an 
emigrant  bank  in  New  York." 

Army  Officer.— "Indeed  !  I  had  thought  of  that 
myself." 


CHAPTER  III 

TO  NAPLES  IN  THE  STEERAGE  OF  THE  LAHN 

WHEN  midsummer  came  it  was  of  course  still 
too  hot  in  southern  Italy  for  us  to  go  there 
with  safety,  let  alone  comfort,  and  it  was 
becoming  every  day  more  onerous  to  live  in  the  quar- 
ter. New  Yorkers  who  dwell  up-town  and  have  entire 
houses,  floors  or  apartments  to  themselves  complain 
bitterly  of  the  heat  in  summer,  and,  if  possible,  escape 
from  the  city.  I  have  passed  a  whole  summer  in  New 
York  up-town,  but,  permit  me  to  say  that  it  is  life  at  a 
seaside  resort  compared  to  what  the  people  endure  in 
the  down-town  tenement  districts. 

I  think  that  we  could  have  supported  the  heat,  but 
the  conglomerate  of  smells  increased  until  it  was  over- 
powering, and  each  night  the  entire  quarter  was  in 
tumult  until  well  towards  dawn.  We  learned  then 
what  we  came  to  know  so  well  thereafter,  that  when 
the  Italian  cannot  sleep  he  fain  would  sing  and  play 
lotto,  seven  and  a  half,  or  mora.  At  last,  in  June,  my 
wife  became  quite  sick  one  day,  and  two  days  later  we 
were  off  on  a  trip  by  steamer  to  Newfoundland,  Lab- 
rador and  Nova  Scotia,  returning  early  in  August  in 
time  to  sail  on  the  Lahn  of  the  North  German  Lloyd 
line. 

The  morning  of  our  departure  was  a  beautiful  one, 
and  as  we  crossed  by  the  Hoboken  ferry  we  could 
see  the  great  German  ships  lying  at  the  Hamburg- 
American  and  North  German  Lloyd  docks.     One  of 


26      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

them  had  smoke  pouring  from  her  funnels,  and  a  "  blue 
peter"  fluttered  at  her  peak, — the  signal  that  she  was 
about  to  sail. 

We  were  dressed  in  the  plainest  and  cheapest  of 
clothes,  bought  and  worn  previously  in  the  quarter, 
and  everything  we  owned  we  had  stored  except  what 
could  be  got  into  a  little  $1.10  imitation-leather  dress- 
ing-case, with  a  shoulder-strap  clipped  into  screw-eyes 
in  the  end  to  make  easy  porterage.  Over  half  of  its 
contents  were  photographic  and  stationery  supplies. 
Instead  of  a  shirt  I  wore  the  usual  dark  jersey  such  as 
many  Italians  in  this  country  wear.  Around  my  waist 
was  a  plain  leather  belt  cleverly  made  of  two  strips 
between  which  reposed  several  thousand  lire,  easily 
put  in  or  taken  out  through  a  neatly  concealed  aper- 
ture. Once  thereafter  a  man  handled  that  belt  and 
threw  it  down  as  not  worth  taking,  when  it  had  in  it  a 
sum  that  would  have  gladdend  his  heart.  I  bore  the 
one  piece  of  baggage,  while  my  wife  carried,  slung 
over  her  shoulder,  the  five-by-seven  cartridge  kodak 
which  was  our  most  jealous  ward,  our  one  essential 
treasure. 

We  had  bought  tickets  at  the  Greenwich  Street  office 
of  the  North  German  Lloyd  Company,  where  the  steer- 
age traffic  is  handled,  under  the  names  of  Berto  and 
Luiga  Brandi  and  when  doing  so  were  asked  our  ages, 
places  of  birth,  occupation,  etc.  On  inquiry  I  found 
that  the  Italian  law  requires  this  of  the  ship's  company, 
and  that  these  sheets  are  used  to  keep  track  of  re- 
turned emigrants  and  facilitate  apprehension  of  any 
men  who  have  avoided  military  duty. 

As  we  pushed  our  way  through  the  crowd  on  the 
dock,  where  freight  and  steerage  baggage  was  being 
rushed  out  of  the  way  of  the  "  first-cabiners,"  who  had 


TO   NAPLES  2 


/ 


not  yet  begun  to  arrive,  we  were  startled  to  find  what 
an  enormous  number  of  fellow  passengers  we 
were  to  have  compared  to  the  steerage  capacity  of  the 
ship  and  the  agent's  forecast  of  the  load.  He  had  con- 
jectured 350  four  days  before.  We  sailed  with  more 
than  750  and  certainly  had  a  full  house. 

As  we  came  up  the  gangway  we  were  checked  off 
by  a  short,  heavy-set  official  in  a  black-lustre  coat  and 
dirty  pique  cap;  and  a  white-aproned  stewardess  of 
massive  frame  gave  us  two  little  red  cards  which  read 
"Good  for  One  Ration,"  while  a  steerage  steward 
thrust  into  our  hands  a  piece  of  horse-blanket  goods  of 
very  poor  material  and  very  scant  in  dimensions, 
wrapped  around  a  tin  spoon,  tin  fork  and  tin  cup,as  well 
as  a  little  pan  about  the  pork-and-bean  size.  As  we 
passed  on  into  the  crowd  and  into  an  unoccupied  cor- 
ner of  the  deck,  and  my  wife  unrolled  her  blanket  and 
saw  what  was  inside,  a  certain  startled,  stricken  look 
came  into  her  eyes.  I  knew  that  for  the  first  time 
realization  of  a  part  of  what  was  before  her  had  come 
to  her.  1  had  often  told  her  as  nearly  as  I  could, 
speaking  from  my  own  experiences  as  a  sailor  when 
studying  seafaring  life,  of  how  steerage  passengers 
lived  on  emigrant  ships;  but  now  any  sort  of  "camp- 
ing-out glamour"  that  had  hung  about  it  for  her  was 
dispelled,  and  she  had  a  glimpse  to  the  fore  where  mis- 
ery, dirt  and  discomfort  lay  spread.  If  she  was  sorry 
she  had  come,  she  did  not  say  so.  I  will  confess  that 
we  had  long  since  made  a  private  bargain  about  the 
enterprise,  and  the  consideration  was  well  worth  the 
while,  so  she  showed  no  sign  of  wavering  from  her 
agreement. 

The  deck  forward  was  the  scene  of  the  wildest  com- 
motion.    Many  people  who  were  returning  had  been 


28      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

accompanied  to  the  dock  by  their  friends,  and  these, 
standing  on  shore,  shouted  vainly  to  their  compatriots 
aboard.  The  noise  was  too  great  for  speech  except  at 
close  range.  On  every  hand  was  piled  baggage  of  all 
shapes  and  sizes;  but  I  remembered  it  afterwards  with 
envy  when  I  saw  the  terrible  mass  of  nondescript 
luggage  which  smothered  the  steerage  on  the  return 
trip.  The  immigrant  comes  here  with  a  huge  pile  of 
bundles,  wooden  boxes  and  flimsy  bags;  he  goes 
home  with  good  steel-framed  valises  and  good  trunks. 

The  chatter  that  prevailed  about  was  mostly  Italian, 
and  1  found  that  some  of  the  dialects  spoken  I  could 
not  understand  at  all.  I  had  not  even  encountered 
them  in  the  quarter.  Then,  too,  there  were  aboard, 
Greeks,  Spaniards,  Swiss,  Germans,  Macedonians, 
Montenegrians,  Hungarians,  Jews  of  several  sorts,  Sy- 
rians, etc.  All  spoke  English  in  stages  varying  from 
a  complete  command  down  to  the  ability  to  swear. 
American  "cuss  words"  are  among  the  first  things 
picked  up  and  the  last  forgot.     Strange,  is  n't  it  ? 

We  had  been  promised  that  we  might  secure  places, 
— after  we  were  on  board,  in  a  closed  compartment 
with  four  other  people,  a  sort  of  superior  steerage  ac- 
commodation to  be  had  at  the  expense  of  $10  added  to 
the  $35  for  passage,  which  we  had  paid,  and,  leaving 
my  wife  seated  in  a  clean  spot  on  a  hatch,  I  scoured 
the  ship  within  the  limits  of  the  steerage  to  find  those 
compartments,  but  all  I  got  was  a  series  of  round  curs- 
ings from  the  petty  officers  for  bothering  them  while 
they  were  busy.  I  nosed  about  every  corner  of  the 
ship  forward,  and  if  there  were  those  compartments 
for  three  married  couples,  which  are  popularly  sup- 
posed to  exist  in  the  emigrant  quarters  and  had  been 
referred  to  in  serious  editorials  in  notable  publications 


~r 


•J— 


\\ 


Life  on  the  Steerage-passengers'  Deck  on  the  Lahn 


TO   NAPLES  29 

within  the  past  three  months  as  being  "  all  that  the 
ship's  people  could  be  expected  to  give  the  third  class 
in  the  way  of  comfort  and  privacy,"  I  was  unable  to 
find  them,  nor  did  1  see  them  or  hear  of  them  at  any 
time  later  on  the  Lahn  or  any  other  ship  1  have  in- 
spected. 

When  I  came  on  deck  a  stocky  Italian,  well  dressed 
in  American  clothes,  was  holding  an  umbrella  over  my 
wife,  for  the  sun  was  beating  down  on  the  ship's  deck, 
and  it  was  terrifically  hot  on  board,  moored  as  she 
was  to  the  south  side  of  the  pier.  They  were  chat- 
ting in  English,  and  when  I  came  up  the  stranger  in- 
troduced himself  as  John  Tury,  of  Lancaster,  Pa.,  a 
peanut  and  fruit  seller,  who  had  been  in  this  country 
five  years  and  was  now  going  home  to  Terra  Nova, 
his  native  village  in  Sicily,  for  a  brief  visit.  He  had 
with  him  three  cousins,  younger  men.  His  English 
was  good  though  not  perfect,  and  he  refused  to  use 
Italian  either  with  us  or  any  one  else  on  shipboard  ex- 
cept when  necessary.  We  sat  talking  for  an  hour  or 
more,  and  became  quite  good  friends,  while  waiting 
for  the  ship  to  sail  and  for  a  semblance  of  order  to 
come  about. 

As  yet  we  had  no  sleeping  quarters.  There  seemed 
to  be  nothing  to  do  but  find  places  in  the  men's  and 
women's  compartments,  and  they  were  already  so  well 
filled  when  we  went  aboard  that  there  was  not  a  de- 
sirable bed  left.  I  went  below,  where  between  decks 
the  long,  closely  set  double  tiers  of  iron  bunks  were 
ranged,  and  looked  in  vain  for  a  bunk  that  was  not  oc- 
cupied by  women  and  children  or  a  piece  of  baggage 
left  to  signify  that  it  had  been  pre-empted.  There 
were  some  empty  beds  in  the  men's  compartments, 
but  they  were  badly  located  for  light  and  air.     There 


30      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

seemed  to  be  nothing  to  gain  by  being  in  a  hurry,  and 
it  was  a  long  time  till  evening  and  bedtime.  I  knew 
there  was  more  room  on  the  ship,  and  I  meant  to  have 
some  of  it  even  if  I  had  to  leave  the  steerage  quarters; 
for  our  only  interest  in  voyaging  to  Italy  in  the  steer- 
age was  to  seek  information  by  association,  whereas 
when  coming  back  to  the  States  it  would  be  to  be 
constantly  with  the  family  with  which  we  expected  to 
return. 

When  I  returned  to  the  deck,  the  big  liner  had  slid 
out  of  the  slip  and  was  just  forging  her  way  down 
stream.  Back  on  the  pier  was  a  black  group  of  people 
waving  handkerchiefs,  parasols  and  hats.  One  large 
group  of  Italians  I  observed,  watching  the  serrated  pro- 
file of  Manhattan  with  great  interest,  and  I  heard  them 
talking  of  it  as  if  they  had  never  seen  it  before.  So  1 
said  to  one  of  them  : 

"Have  you  been  in  America  and  have  not  seen  New 
York?" 

"No,  we  came  to  Boston  and  by  railroad  to  Scran- 
ton." 

"  Have  you  been  at  work  in  the  mines  ?  " 

"Yes,  they  are  just  sending  forty  of  us  back  home, 
and  one  hundred  more  will  go  next  month." 

I  knew  at  once  that  the  group  was  one  of  contract 
laborers  who  were  being  returned  to  their  country, 
and  by  questioning  him  further  I  learned  that  they  had 
been  employed  in  the  Lackawanna  mines  and  had  got 
employment  through  an  Italian  "banker"  in  Scranton 
who  had  sent  two  men  to  Italy  in  October  of  the  year 
before,  and  during  the  winter  they  had  hired  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  Potenza  nearly  three  hundred  men  and  despatched 
them  in  small  parties  on  successive  steamers  to  Boston 
in  the  months  of  March,  April  and  May.     Those  who 


TO   NAPLES  31 

were  now  returning  were  those  who  had  been  hurt, 
were  sick,  or  were  dissatisfied.  Ten  of  them  had  had  ac- 
cidents and  four  had  lung  trouble;  one  poor  fellow,  he 
told  me,  being  oven  then  in  the  ship's  hospital  for 
steerage  passengers  dying  with  consumption,  the  re- 
sult of  his  two  years'  work  under  ground. 

The  steerage  passengers  are  supposed  to  form  them- 
selves into  groups  of  six,  and  one  man  of  the  six  is  the 
one  to  receive  the  food  as  it  is  ladled  out  of  huge  tanks 
on  deck  by  the  steerage  stewards;  but  not  having  had 
time  to  get  properly  assorted,  dinner  was  now  served 
to  the  steerage  on  a  basis  of  "every  man  look  out  for 
his  own." 

1  took  our  two  tin  pans  and  the  tin  cups,  and  plunged 
into  the  crush  waiting  to  pass  in  line  down  the  alley 
which  was  made  by  the  tanks  and  baskets  of  food, 
ranged  on  the  deck  forward,  and  emerged  in  half  an 
hour  with  two  messes  of  macaroni  and  meat,  two  tin 
cups  of  highly  acid  and  alcoholic  wine  and  a  cap  full  of 
hot  potatoes. 

As  my  wife  looked  the  fare  over  when  I  brought  it 
to  her  as  she  squatted  in  a  nook  sheltered  from  the 
sun,  her  lips  trembled  and  she  looked  away  towards 
Staten  Island,  then  dropping  into  dim  distance,  as  if 
wishing  that  she  could  by  some  magic  word  trans- 
port herself  back  to  home-land  soil  once  more.  But  in 
an  instant  her  courage  forced  a  smile,  and  we  closed 
our  eyes  and  ate  and  drank.  It  did  not  taste  so  bad, 
after  all,  but  it  was  the  look  of  it  !  And  the  way  the 
women  and  children  about  us  spilled  it  around  on 
the  deck  and  on  themselves  ! 

After  we  had  eaten  what  little  we  might,  we  ensconced 
ourselves  in  a  bit  of  shade  and  watched  the  crowd 
about.     Every  moment  that  passed,  every  bit  of  con- 


32      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

versation  we  caught,  every  small  incident  that  oc- 
curred, showed  us  that  for  months  we  had  been  moving 
on  a  false  plane,  that  just  at  that  time  when  we  thought 
ourselves  in  the  genuine  atmosphere  of  the  life  of  the 
Italian  immigrant  in  the  New  World,  we  were  merely 
in  that  false  temporizing  atmosphere  which  he  creates 
for  himself  and  fellows,  and  from  which  he  emerges 
only  when  he  has  become  Americanized.  In  a  few 
minutes  we  understood  that  the  greater  portion  of  the 
conditions,  habits  and  operations  which  we  had  ob- 
served grew  out  of  a  feeling  among  them  that  they 
were  merely  temporizing  here;  that  they  had  come  to 
America  to  make  a  few  hundred  dollars  to  send  or  take 
back  to  Italy;  and  that  it  did  not  make  much  difference 
what  they  ate,  wore  or  did,  just  so  long  as  they  got  the 
money  and  got  back.  We  could  see  plainly  why  it 
was  that  they  had  not  risen  above  that  state  until  they 
had  been  attracted  and  drawn  into  the  real  American 
life  about  them  and  had  decided  to  remain.  Here  were 
hundreds  of  Italians  just  such  as  those  who  had  been 
our  household  neighbors,  but  they  were  now  a  different 
people.  They  spoke  freely,  they  bore  themselves  dif- 
ferently. There  was  a  new  certainty  and  boldness  in 
their  manner,  for  they  were  free  and  cut  off  from  all 
things  American,  and,  without  imperilling  a  single  inter- 
est, could  return  to  everything  that  was  Italian.  Sepa- 
rated from  its  opportunities  for  betterment,  their  state 
in  this  country  is  inferior  to  that  at  home.  This  I  can 
say  conscientiously  after  long  and  careful  observation. 
We  became  acquainted  with  a  woman  who  sat  near 
us  and  who  had  a  very  pretty  little  girl.  This  woman 
said  she  came  from  Pittsburg,  having  been  born  of  Italian 
parents  in  this  country  when  the  first  Italians  came 
from  the  north  of  Italy  about  twenty-five  years  ago. 


TO   NAPLES  33 

She  had  married  an  Italian  who  had  emigrated  more  re- 
cently, and  now  they  were  going  home  for  a  visit.  She 
expressed  intense  disgust  at  the  manner  in  which  about 
one  third  of  the  women  conducted  themselves  and  al- 
lowed their  children  to  behave.  These  women  were 
the  ones  who  made  the  noise,  who  scattered  the  filth, 
who  sprawled  about  on  deck  and  whose  children, 
though  on  board  but  a  few  hours  as  yet,  were  sights  to 
behold  from  being  allowed  to  play  in  the  scuppers 
where  the  refuse  from  dinner  had  collected  in  heaps 
purpled  with  the  wasted  wine. 

From  her  we  learned  that  her  husband  had  been  com- 
missioned by  a  contractor  in  Pittsburg  to  go  into  the 
Italian  provinces  of  Austria, — by  which  is  meant  the 
Austrian  possession  immediately  around  the  head  of  the 
Adriatic,  where  the  stock  is  Italian, — and  engage  two 
hundred  good  stonemasons,  two  hundred  good  carpen- 
ters, and  an  indefinite  number  of  unskilled  laborers. 
These  people  were  to  be  put  in  touch  with  sub-agents  of 
lines  sailing  from  Hamburg,  Fiume  and  Bremen,  and 
these  agents  were  to  be  accountable  for  these  contract 
laborers  being  got  safely  into  the  United  States.  This 
woman  informed  us  that  many  of  her  neighbors  in 
Pittsburg  had  come  into  the  United  States  as  contract 
laborers,  and  held  the  law  in  great  contempt,  as  it  was 
merely  a  matter  of  being  sufficiently  instructed  and  pre- 
pared, and  no  official  at  Boston  or  Ellis  Island  could  tell 
the  difference. 

We  had  been  seated  there  a  little  while  when  there 
came  by  a  sailor  whom  I  had  known  in  Hamburg  some 
years  before,  and  when  I  stepped  aside  to  talk  with 
him  he  was  greatly  surprised  but  remembered  me,  and 
we  talked  of  many  things  which  do  not  pertain  to  this 
consideration,  save  that  just  before  he  left  I  told  him 


34      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

that  we  were  on  the  lookout  for  the  best  sleeping  and 
eating  accommodations  we  could  get  in  the  steerage, 
and  he  answered,  laughingly,  that  it  was  easy  enough 
to  get  a  good  place  and  good  things  to  eat— if  I  had 
money.     I  signified  that  1  had. 

He  said  he  would  send  me  a  man  who  would  be  the 
person  with  whom  to  dicker.  When  he  was  gone,  I 
sat  down  to  wait.  In  about  an  hour  I  saw  a  tall,  well- 
built  man  in  ship's  working  rig,  neither  a  sailor  nor  a 
steward,  though  moving  about  the  steerage  apparently 
looking  for  some  one;  so  I  moved  his  way,  and  when  he 
saw  me  he  sidled  up  cautiously,  glancing  up  at  the 
bridge,  the  forward  end  of  the  boat  and  the  hurricane 
deck  to  see  who  might  be  observing.  I  spoke  to  him 
in  German;  but  he  replied  in  English  and  said  we  had 
better  talk  English,  as  it  was  the  language  that  was  safe 
from  eavesdroppers. 

He  said  he  would  sell  us  good  beds  for  $10  each,  and 
we  could  buy  food  as  we  wished  it.  The  food  would 
be  furnished  by  the  first-cabin  cook  and  would  be  sav- 
ings from  the  galley.  I  demanded  to  see  the  beds  first, 
and  he  led  the  way  below.  He  took  us  to  the  entrance 
to  the  steerage  compartments  nearest  amidships,  where 
they  opened  into  a  little  alleyway,  at  one  end  of  which 
was  one  of  the  public  bars  for  the  sale  of  beer  to  those 
Italians,  Jews,  etc.,  who  have  learned  to  drink  beer  in- 
stead of  wine.  Beside  the  companionway  which  led 
down  to  the  compartments  for  third-class  passengers 
was  a  narrow  one  marked  "  Hospital."  It  led  down 
past  the  steerage  dispensary  and  to  the  two  rooms  ap- 
portioned for  female  sick.  A  narrow  alleyway  passed 
transversely  to  the  other  side  of  the  ship,  where  there 
were  two  rooms  for  the  male  sick.  My  conductor  was 
the  hospital  steward,  and  his  offer  to  us  was  a  bunk 


TO   NAPLES  35 

each  in  the  hospital  wards,  to  which  we  could  come  at 
night  as  if  we  were  patients.  I  could  not  see  how  it 
was  safe  to  pay  the  money  in  advance,  and  then  be 
ousted  by  the  ship's  doctor  the  first  time  he  made 
his  rounds.  So  this  hospital  steward,  who  was  called 
Otho,  surprised  me  by  summoning  the  ship's  doctor,  a 
young  German  with  a  fringe  of  flaxen  beard  and  bulg- 
ing eyes,  and  allowing  him  to  reassure  me.  It  was  all 
right.  He  got  his  share  of  the  money  from  the  rental 
of  the  bunks.  All  of  them  expressed  a  great  fear  and 
dread  of  the  Italian  doctor,  the  naval  surgeon  put  on 
each  emigrant  ship  by  the  Italian  government. 

In  brief,  as  the  beds  were  clean,  the  situation  inter- 
esting and  the  hospital  wards  not  very  crowded,  we 
accepted,  and  whenever  the  food  on  deck  was  not  to 
our  liking  we  could  get  an  abundance  from  the  hospital. 
It  was  rather  wearisome,  the  last  few  days,  though. 
Duck  and  chicken  for  every  meal! 

In  my  room  there  were  two  others  who  were  paying 
rent  for  beds.  One  was  a  quaint  old  fellow  from 
Tuckahoe,  where  he  kept  a  saloon.  He  was  on  his  way 
home  for  the  fourth  time.  He  wore  a  knit  worsted 
green  and  yellow  skull-cap  day  and  night.  It  had  a 
long  yellow  tassel  on  it,  and  some  nights  the  tassel 
would  get  in  his  mouth  and  interfere  with  his  slumbers 
— and  mine.  The  second  room  had  but  one  patient  in 
it,  one  of  the  contract  laborers  from  Scranton  who  was 
dying  with  consumption  and  prayed  all  day  long  for  a 
sufficient  lease  of  life  to  see  the  Bay  of  Naples,  when 
he  felt  sure  he  would  begin  to  get  well  at  once.  In 
three  years  he  had  saved  and  sent  home  $820,  which 
made  his  wife  and  family  comparatively  independent. 
He  told  me  one  day  that  even  if  he  died  as  the  result  of 
his  voluntary  slavery  in  the  mines  he  felt  sufficiently 


36      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

repaid.     I  am  glad  to  say  that  at  least  he  reached  home 
alive. 

Late  that  afternoon  we  ran  rapidly  into  murky 
weather  and  before  long  encountered  a  stiff  gale,  for 
August.  It  lasted  all  night  and  all  the  next  day.  I  have 
been  on  ships  steadier  than  the  Lahn,  and  this  gale  took 
her  nearly  on  the  beam.  The  seasickness  in  the  steer- 
age was  nothing  short  of  frightful.  Fortunately  the 
people  had  had  very  little  to  eat— few  of  them  much 
breakfast  on  sailing-day  and  very  few  any  supper— so 
the  most  undesirable  feature  of  a  seasick  crowd  was 
limited.  Also  many  of  the  third-class  passengers  had 
profited  by  the  experiences  of  former  voyages,  and  were 
able  to  take  care  of  themselves  and  make  less  bother 
for  their  neighbors.  Nevertheless,  the  compartments, 
in  which  the  people  were  compelled  to  stay  by  reason 
of  the  deck  weather,  were  in  a  state  in  describing 
which  no  good  purpose  is  served.  The  steerage 
stewards  were  constantly  busy  with  hose,  sand 
buckets,  brooms,  etc. 

Not  only  were  we  seeking  general  information,  but 
we  were  hoping  to  get  trace  of  some  southern  Italian 
family  about  to  emigrate,  in  order  to  make  them,  as 
planned,  the  central  feature  of  our  analytical  study  of 
particular  experiences;  so,  as  the  days  went  by,  I  in- 
quired of  each  new  person  with  whom  I  fell  into  con- 
versation if  he  knew  of  such  a  family.  Nearly  every 
other  man  was  either  going  over  to  get  a  wife  for  him- 
self or  already  had  a  family  in  Italy  and  expected  to  re- 
turn in  October,  or,  if  not  then,  in  the  following  May. 
In  a  short  time  we  had  twenty  families  under  consid- 
eration, but  none  of  them  seemed  to  be  exactly  typical; 
they  were  all  too  small,  too  large,  too  rich  or  from 
provinces  that  sent  few  emigrants. 


TO   NAPLES  37 

There  was  a  group  of  eight  Greeks  aboard  who  had 
been  denied  admission  to  the  United  States  and  were 
part  of  twenty-two  men,  women  and  children  of 
mixed  races  who  had  arrived  in  New  York  on  the  Lahn 
and  other  North  German  Lloyd  ships  and  were  being 
returned  by  the  company.  The  leader  of  the  group 
was  a  huge  fellow  with  very  curly  hair  and  beard  who 
rejoiced  in  the  name  of  Garareikophalous,  and  the  third 
day  I  had  a  long  chat  with  him  with  the  aid  of  an  in- 
terpreter from  among  our  fellow  passengers. 

He  said  that  all  Greece  was  stirred  up  over  the  mat- 
ter of  emigration,  and  that  in  five  years'  time  the  num- 
ber of  Greeks  coming  to  the  United  States  would  have 
increased  a  thousand  per  cent.  The  military  duties  in 
the  kingdom  were  too  onerous  to  be  borne,  and  the 
Greeks  already  in  the  United  States  were  prospering  to 
such  an  extent  that  every  remittance  they  made  home 
fired  the  zeal  of  the  people  to  follow  after  them.  In 
nearly  every  village  the  candy-makers'  shops  were 
educating  twice  the  usual  number  of  apprentices,  be- 
cause the  first  emigrants  had  been  candy-makers  and 
they  had  established  a  foothold  in  the  confectionery 
business  and  then  sent  for  their  candy-making  relatives, 
which  had  caused  a  shortage  in  confectioners  in 
Greece  and  in  turn  had  created  the  impression  that  to 
get  on  best  in  America  a  Greek  should  be  a  candy- 
maker.  Therefore  every  father  who  desired  that  his 
sons  should  go  to  America  and  send  him  enough 
money  home  to  make  him  a  rich  man  among  his 
neighbors,  apprenticed  them  to  candy-making  and 
after  two  years  shipped  them  to  New  York.  Some 
of  the  venturesome  ones  had  branched  out  in  the  dried- 
fruit  and  olive-oil  business,  and  he  had  heard  they  were 
doing  very  well.     The   result  would   be   that  as  the 


38      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

various  natural  industries  of  Greece  were  taken  up  in 
America,  and  opportunities  for  labor  and  business  of- 
fered, the  emigration  would  swell  to  comparatively 
huge  proportions. 

A  feature  which  he  mentioned  and  on  which  I  ques- 
tioned him  exhaustively  was  the  advertising  done  by 
the  steamship  companies.  He  had  some  of  the  ad- 
vertisements in  his  pockets,  and  some  others  he  got 
from  the  members  of  his  party.  These  he  translated 
to  the  interpreter,  who  gave  me  a  rough  idea  of  what 
they  were.  I  found  they  were  not  issued  by  the 
steamship  companies  but  by  sub-agents  in  Vienna, 
Bremen,  Hamburg,  Berlin,  Naples,  etc.,  and  were  of  a 
very  alluring  sort.  Two  of  them  were  poems  expati- 
ating on  the  beauties  and  wealth  of  America,  and  one 
was  a  clipping  from  a  Greek  paper  supposed  to  be 
printed  in  New  York,  which  related  how  a  poor  boy 
from  Thessaly  had  gone  to  Cincinnati  and  opened  a 
little  candy  store.  He  had  broadened  his  business  to 
a  factory,  and  now  had  headquarters  of  four  factories 
in  New  York,  and  had  property  to  the  extent  of  a 
million  and  a  half  drachmas,  or  about  $200,000,  to  show 
for  eight  years'  work. 

Garareikophalous  was  very  proud  of  the  fact  that  he 
and  his  party  had  not  been  deceived  by  the  sub-agents 
into  going  to  America  by  the  northern  route.  He 
averred  that  every  effort  is  made  by  the  sub-agents  all 
through  his  country  to  get  the  emigrants  to  go  over- 
land to  the  German  or  French  ports  and  take  ship 
there  instead  of  shipping  at  Naples  or  other  Mediter- 
ranean ports. 

I  was  unable  to  understand  this  action  of  the  sub- 
agents  until  I  had  the  light  of  later  investigation  upon 
it,  when  1  found  that  it  is  a  rule  of  the  agents  at  the 


'■ ; . Jfc — *j~. 


Preparing  to  Serve  a  Meal  on  the  Lahn  from  the  Food-tanks 

and    Bread-baskets 


TO   NAPLES  39 

ports  of  embarkation  never  to  allow  an  emigrant  who 
has  been  denied  admission  to  the  United  States  to  re- 
turn to  his  native  village  if  business  is  anything  less 
than  rushing  from  that  section,  for  the  reason  that  one 
emigrant  who  has  failed  to  enter  the  United  States  can 
keep  three  hundred  more  from  trying  it.  If  the  emi- 
grant were  returned  to  a  southern  port,  the  chances  of 
his  reaching  home  would  be  greatly  increased.  Emi- 
grants returned  to  German  and  French  ports  are  often 
reshipped  to  South  Africa,  South  America  and  Mexico. 
Furthermore,  when  they  are  of  the  sort  that  needs 
coaching  and  schooling,  in  order  that  they  shall  not 
make  the  wrong  answers  at  Ellis  Island,  the  journey 
across  the  continent  is  used  as  an  educational  process 
in  which  they  are  carefully  taught  to  dissemble.  If 
there  are  members  of  the  family  who  are  physically 
unfit  to  be  sent  to  Ellis  Island,  the  sub-agents  persuade 
the  family  to  separate  at  the  port  of  embarkation,  and 
the  diseased  and  deformed  ones  are  sent  across  the 
channel  into  England  and  dumped  in  the  charitable 
institutions.  Sometimes  they  are  sent  from  England, 
perhaps  even  from  the  port  of  embarkation,  to  Can- 
ada. The  Hamburg-American  line  carries  a  notoriously 
bad  lot  of  emigrants  into  Halifax.  This  feature  I  had 
investigated  to  my  complete  satisfaction  in  July. 

More  information  that  was  decidedly  to  the  point,  I 
received  from  two  Jews  who  were  returning  to  as- 
semble a  large  party  of  former  neighbors  and  bring 
them  to  America,  to  sell  off  a  quantity  of  property 
and  in  general  readjust  matters  in  a  town  not  far  from 
Odessa,  in  behalf  of  a  coterie  of  relatives  whom  they 
had  brought  to  America  previously.  Both  had  lived 
in  Hungary  and  had  traveled  all  through  the  districts 
from  which  comes  the  poor  Jew  of  the  South.     They 


40      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

were  going  to  Naples,  by  rail  to  Brindisi,  then  to  Alex- 
andria and  Smyrna,  and  would  go  north  from  Con- 
stantinople. I  will  confess  that  it  was  not  easy  to 
elicit  information  from  them,  and  very  indirect  pro- 
cesses were  necessary;  but  here  are  some  of  the  things 
learned. 

Among  Russians  as  well  as  Jews  in  Russia  the  limi- 
tations of  the  American  immigration  laws  are  very 
well  known  indeed  by  the  priests,  school-teachers,  of- 
ficials and  others;  and  when  a  family  desires  to  emi- 
grate it  begins  by  paying  a  weekly  stipend  to  some 
person  in  this  class,  who  puts  them  through  a  course 
of  instruction  as  to  how  to  carry  money,  answer 
questions,  conceal  diseases,  etc.  When  the  family 
starts  it  is  met  at  all  important  stations  by  a  Jewish 
committee  and  passed  on.  An  ignorant  Jew  pos- 
sessed of  some  wealth  is  almost  certain  to  lose  much 
of  it  at  the  hands  of  unscrupulous  Jews  who  infest 
principal  stations,  border  towns,  etc.  There  have 
been  cases  where  poor  families  even  lost  their  little  all 
to  these  harpies,  ending  by  becoming  charitable 
charges  in  England  or  Belgium.  In  many  cases  the 
family  is  part  of  a  large  group  under  the  direct  charge 
of  a  runner  from  some  sub-agent's  office,  but  this  is 
usually  the  case  when  the  people  are  very  poor  and 
obviously  diseased.  Groups  like  this  are  not  delivered 
to  the  steamship  agents  at  German  and  French  ports, 
but  are  sent  to  a  place  called  the  Shelter  for  Poor  Jews 
which  has  been  established  in  London,  and  they  are 
kept  there  many  weeks  if  necessary,  and  then  sent 
either  to  New  York,  Boston,  Halifax  or  Montreal.  Cases 
of  trachoma  are  treated  in  this  shelter,  in  great  numbers, 
until  the  emigrant  is  ready  to  pass  inspection.  Those 
cases  which  are  regarded  as  hopeless  are  sent  to  Ca- 


TO   NAPLES  41 

nadian  towns  in  care  of  Jewish  societies  and  are  smug- 
gled across  the  border  gradually. 

These  men  had  a  quantity  of  letters  and  credentials 
signed  by  various  steamship  representatives,  and  I  was 
exceedingly  sorry  that  I  could  not  know  whether  they 
were  bound  on  a  mission  that  was  much  more  exten- 
sive and  nefarious  than  the  plans  which  they  avowed 
to  me. 

One  fine  morning  we  sighted  the  Azores  and  passed 
close  by  the  shore  of  St.  Michaels,  and  the  second  day 
thereafter  we  arrived  at  Gibraltar.  Third-class  pas- 
sengers were  not  encouraged  to  go  ashore,  but  I  made 
a  little  arrangement  with  the  man  at  the  plank;  and  my 
wife,  John  Tury,  the  Lancaster  peanut-seller,  and  I 
went  ashore  in  the  dusk  of  the  evening.  The  steamer 
would  not  leave  till  after  midnight.  As  we  walked 
along  the  streets,  Tury  said  to  me: 

"  I  suppose  if  we  were  going  to  be  here  for  a  day, 
we  might  take  the  train  over  to  London  ?" 

"To  London!  Why,  what  do  you  mean?"  I  ex- 
claimed. 

"Why,  I  have  heard  England  is  a  very  small  place, 
and  it  cannot  be  far  from  here  to  London." 

Then  I  realized  that  he  thought  Gibraltar  was  the 
southern  end  of  England,  and  1  was  surprised  to  learn 
later  how  many  Italians  who  have  voyaged  by  Gibral- 
tar more  than  once  are  of  the  same  impression.  I 
have  heard  some  argue  for  it  stoutly. 

Just  the  day  before  we  reached  Naples,  when  there 
was  great  happiness  and  rejoicing  on  every  hand,  I  ob- 
served a  well-built  young  Italian  with  heavy  black  hair 
and  moustache,  a  handsome  fellow  of  twenty-five, 
come  up  from  below  with  his  mandolin.  With  him 
was  an  older  man  with  a  guitar.     In  a  few  minutes 


42      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

there  was  a  little  band  of  four  musicians  gathered  on 
the  shady  side  of  the  ship  at  the  foot  of  the  compan- 
ion-way to  the  hurricane  deck.  They  were  playing  an 
American  two-step,  and  had  a  well-pleased  crowd 
about  them.  On  the  lapel  of  the  mandolin-player  I 
observed  a  button  of  the  Foresters.  They  had  begun 
on  the  second  number  of  their  impromptu  concert, 
when  the  second  officer  piped  from  the  bridge,  a  deck 
hand  went  up  and  came  down  in  a  minute  with  this 
mandate: 

"You  must  stop  playing;  the  captain  wants  to 
sleep." 

Jeers  and  shouts  of  scorn  and  anger  rose  on  every 
hand,  and  I  observed  that  the  leaders  in  this  expression 
were  those  men  whom  1  knew  to  be  American  citizens 
or  Italians,  Jews  or  Greeks  of  some  length  of  residence 
in  the  United  States. 

As  the  young  mandolin-player  walked  away,  1 
stopped  him  and  spoke  to  him  in  English,  asking  him 
if  he  was  a  Forester.  He  told  me  he  was  and  that 
he  belonged  to  a  lodge  in  Stonington,  Conn.,  and,  hav- 
ing been  in  America  five  years,  was  now  going  home 
"  for  the  women  folks." 

In  brief,  1  found  in  him  and  his  family  the  ideal 
group  for  which  we  had  been  looking.  He  was  suffi- 
ciently Americanized  to  appreciate  the  object  of  our 
investigations,  and  we  speedily  became  good  friends. 

His  name  is  Antonio  Squadrito,  and  he  had  with  him 
his  father,  Giovanni.  Five  years  before,  he  had  left 
his  native  Sicilian  village,  Gualtieri-Sicamino,  as  one  of 
the  first  to  depart  for  America  from  all  that  country. 
He  had  done  so  because  he  had  his  choice  between 
going  into  the  Carabineers,  or  rural  police,  and  taking 
up  a  trade.     He  had  told  his  father  that  if  he  would 


TO   NAPLES  43 

help  him  borrow  the  money  he  would  go  to  America. 
This  was  done,  though  the  neighbors  all  prophesied 
disaster  and  misfortune  "  in  that  strange  wild  land." 

He  landed  at  the  Battery  from  the  Kaiser  Friedrich, 
being  "  recommended  "  to  a  distant  relative  from  a 
northern  province  who  was  already  in  New  York;  and 
the  first  work  he  got  was  in  the  quarries  of  Westerly, 
R.  I.,  where  he  worked  for  three  months  at  %\.  10  per 
day.  He  played  the  mandolin  even  then  with  fair 
skill,  and  made  friends  with  an  Italian  who  had  a  bar- 
ber shop  in  Stonington.  Antonio  went  there  to  work, 
and  as  he  saved  his  money  he  sent  back,  little  by  little, 
enough  to  pay  off  his  debt  at  home,  and  the  remainder 
his  boss  "  borrowed"  from  him.  Some  domestic  re- 
lations of  the  boss  caused  him  to  desire  to  sell  out,  and 
one  day  he  came  to  Antonio  and  told  him  he  must  buy 
his  barber  shop  or  he  would  not  get  back  the  borrowed 
money.  Antonio  protested  that  he  could  not  speak 
enough  English  to  run  the  business,  but  the  boss  in- 
sisted, and  in  the  end  Antonio  found  himself  possessed 
of  the  shop  and  a  new  debt  of  $100  which  he  had  got 
as  a  loan  from  a  man  who  had  taken  an  interest  in  him. 

The  shop  prospered.  Antonio  sent  over  for  his 
brother  Giuseppe  to  come  over  and  help  him.  Giu- 
seppe is  older  and  had  married  a  year  before,  and  his 
wife  Camela  had  presented  him  with  a  pretty  little 
girl  baby  whom  they  had  named  Caterina  after  her 
grandmother  Squadrito.  The  next  year  the  shop  was 
doing  so  well  that  Carlino,  the  brother  next  younger 
than  Antonio,  was  sent  for;  and  the  next  year  Tom- 
masso,  a  still  younger  brother,  and  Giovanni  the  father 
were  brought  over.  The  father  worked  at  carpenter- 
ing and  coopering  in  Stonington,  making  as  much  as 
$1.80  per  day;  but  he  could  not  learn  the  language,  and 


44      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

when  I  met  him  his  English  was  limited  to  "All  right!" 
"  Fine  day!"  "Yes,  sir!"  and  "cuss  words." 

In  the  last  year  before  our  meeting  Antonio  had 
married  the  widow  of  a  whaling-captain  of  the  town, 
who  had  been  left  property  by  her  husband  estimated 
roundly  at  $60,000.  By  this  time  Antonio  had  made 
in  his  barber  shop  and  cigar  store  and  by  furnishing 
music  for  dances,  etc.,  $8,000,  and  had  sent  home  five 
or  ten  dollars  each  month.  A  nice  little  acre  or  two  of 
garden  land  had  been  bought  east  of  the  village,  and  of 
this  Antonio  was  very  proud,  as  in  his  country  none 
but  the  fairly  well-to-do  owns  land. 

Now  he  was  going  home  to  get  a  party  of  the  fam- 
ily, of  cousins  and  neighbors,  and  he  expected  to  re- 
turn in  two  or  three  months.  That  suited  the  limits 
of  our  time,  and  the  location  of  the  family  in  one  of 
the  hotbeds  of  emigration  was  most  pleasing;  so  we 
were  delighted  when  he  cordially  invited  us  to  go 
home  with  him.  We  explained  that  we  wished  to 
make  a  sort  of  general  study  of  the  country  as  it  re- 
lated to  the  immigration  question,  before  we  took  up 
the  subject  in  particular,  and  he  confided  that  his  prin- 
cipal reason  for  wishing  to  have  us  visit  him  in  Gual- 
tieri  was  to  show  the  people  there  that  all  the  won- 
derful stories  they  had  been  hearing  about  him  were 
true  in  the  main.  He  carried  no  proof  except  banking 
papers,  and  he  was  anxious  about  "what  the  home 
folks  might  think."  I  often  think  of  how  much  of 
the  strenuous  endeavor  in  all  lines  in  this  world  is  to 
"impress  the  home  folks."  How  many  men  and 
women  have  been  disappointed  when  they  went  out 
into  the  world  and  did  something  that  was  absolutely 
beyond  the  comprehension — even  belief,  perhaps — of 
the  simple-minded  "folks  at  home." 


TO   NAPLES  45 

The  next  day,  late  in  the  morning,  signs  began  to 
show  in  the  east  that  we  were  nearing  the  shores  of 
Italy,  and  late  that  afternoon  the  Lahn  forged  into  a 
berth  close  to  the  naval  sea  wall  before  the  beautiful 
city  of  Naples. 

As  we  were  leaving  the  ship  we  saw  Carabineers  at 
the  gangways  arresting  several  men  who  had  been  in 
the  steerage  with  us.  I  made  inquiry,  and  was  in- 
formed that  the  men  arrested  had  left  Italy  to  avoid 
military  duty,  and  they  had  been  kept  track  of.  When 
they  sailed  home,  the  Italian  authorities  in  New  York 
had  notified  the  queslor,  or  chief  of  police,  at  Naples. 

As  the  tender  which  took  us  ashore  steamed  away 
from  the  Lahn,  we  got  a  fine  view  of  the  ship  and  its 
surroundings.  It  was  encompassed  on  every  hand  by 
bumboat-men  selling  the  sweet  fruits  of  Italy,  for  which 
her  sons  and  daughters  had  hungered  and  thirsted  so 
long.  Just  outside  of  the  ring  of  bumboat-men  were 
the  twoscore  or  more  boats  of  the  runners  for 
emigrant  lodging-houses.  These  men  would  get  the 
eye  of  a  returned  emigrant  on  board  and  would  bar- 
gain with  him  for  a  room,  then  take  him  off  with  his 
baggage.  A  police  official  in  plain  clothes  who  was 
aboard  the  tender  told  me  that  among  the  curses  of 
the  city  are  the  practices  in  these  lodging-houses, 
where  every  sort  of  evil  element  congregates  to  prey 
on  the  simple-minded  countryman  who  has  been  to 
America  for  two  or  three  years,  toiled  hard  for  the 
few  hundred  dollars  he  is  bringing  back,  and  yet  has 
not  wit  enough  to  keep  the  thieves  of  Naples  from 
getting  all  or  a  portion  of  it.  However,  the  returned 
emigrants  are  not  to  be  condemned  for  their  witless- 
ness.  I  flatter  myself  that  I  know  a  thing  or  two,  and 
yet  I  found  myself  on  the  constant  qui  vive  to  keep 


46      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

from  being  "done"  in  Naples,  and  even  my  great 
vigilance  did  not  save  me  once  or  twice.  Dishonesty 
is  part  of  the  air  in  Naples,  just  as  is  the  smell  that  is 
famous. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CONDITIONS  IN  THE  NEAPOLITAN  ZONE 

IT  is  a  painful  fact,  but  the  average  American's 
conception  of  Italian  immigration  is  that  the 
majority  of  the  Italians  come  from  "down  in  the 
Boot,"  and  that  they  are  all  bad  and  undesirable.  It 
is  the  usual  thing  to  regard  all  southern  Italians  as 
unworthy  of  Americanism.  One  sees  it  constantly  in 
public  print  or  finds  it  in  private  discourse.  And  the 
phrase  about  the  Boot  is  one  which  has  been  bruited 
around  again  and  again  from  official  report  to  alarmist 
editorial,  and  back  to  classical  reference  which  was  its 
origin.  I  have  met  many  people  who  are  not  aware 
that  the  Sicilians,  for  instance,  do  not  come  from 
"down  in  the  Boot."  These  ideas  all  mate  nicely 
with  the  one  which  attributes  to  every  Italian  the  pos- 
session of  a  stiletto  up  his  sleeve  and  an  ever-ready 
hand  to  use  it. 

The  poor  southern  Italians  are  the  object  of  con- 
stant attack  by  the  American  public,  of  bitter  contempt 
from  the  more  fortunate  people  of  the  northern 
provinces,  and  of  ceaseless  worriment  from  the  gentle- 
men legislators  of  the  kingdom.  Italia  Meridionale  is 
in  a  miserable  condition  compared  with  the  north, 
and  the  people  are  ignorant,  and  the  percentage  of 
illiteracy  is  appalling;  but,  nevertheless,  they  are  strong 
in  body,  steadfast  in  mind,  willing  of  spirit  and  at  all 
times  thrifty;  so  that,  speaking  from  an  immigratory 
standpoint,  I  am  convinced,  after  a  survey  of  the  entire 
experiment,  that  they  are  a  very  good  sort  of  raw 


48      IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

material  and  their  immigration  should  be  encouraged, 
if  the  rottenness  that  corrupts  them  after  they  are  here 
— as  a  drop  of  poison  can  turn  the  blood  of  an  entire 
body  to  virus — could  be  cut  out  before  they  start. 

Poverty,  ignorance  and  hot  blood  have  fostered 
among  them  crime,  treachery  and  immorality,  and  the 
larger  towns  have  sufficed  to  gather  these  into  fester- 
ing clusters,  leaving  the  countryside  comparatively 
pure.  The  farmer-folk  and  the  villagers  are  not 
criminal,  dishonest  or  vicious;  but  when,  in  the 
process  of  emigration,  nine  of  them  are  thrown  with 
that  one  tenth  man  who  is  so,  he  leads  them  into 
ways  that  are  not  straight  and  paths  that  are  turned, 
and  in  many,  many  instances  organizes  a  band  which 
holds  a  large  coterie  of  families  almost  entirely  in  its 
power.  This  it  can  do  by  superior  intelligence, 
boldness,  etc.,  and  the  fact  that  the  Italians  in  America 
are  in  a  strange  land,  are  "greenhorns,''  as  they  say 
among  themselves,  lays  them  wide  open  to  such 
invidious  influences.  If  that  one  man  or  woman  out 
of  every  ten  who  is  vicious  could  be  prevented  from 
sailing,  a  few  years  would  see  Italian  names  almost  en- 
tirely effaced  from  the  criminal  news  and  the  court  and 
prison  records.  If  the  system  of  social  poisoning  of 
the  densely  populated  immigrant  quarters  is  not  des- 
troyed, it  will  ultimately  prove  a  menace  to  all  law 
and  order  in  the  large  cities  or  industrial  districts 
populous  with  immigrants. 

Before  we  went  to  Sicily  to  study  the  peculiar  con- 
ditions surrounding  the  Squadrito  family  and  their 
neighbors,  we  took  up  the  general  investigation 
through  the  country  south  of  Rome,  gathering  what 
we  could  by  going  from  town  to  town,  asking  ques- 
tions,   asking    questions,    always    asking    questions. 


THE  NEAPOLITAN    ZONE    49 

Much  was  to  be  learned  from  watching  even  the 
tiniest  things  in  the  newspapers  and  from  observ- 
ing the  people  themselves  as  they  passed  about 
the  most  inconsequential  pursuits  of  their  daily  ex- 
istence. 

To  give  the  matter  a  topical  consideration,  it 
separates  itself  naturally  into  five  divisions,  which  are 
semi-geographical  merely  for  convenience,  as  it  would 
be  erroneous  indeed  to  consider  each  province  accord- 
ing to  its  political  boundaries:  The  Zone  of  Naples, 
the  Zone  of  Rome,  the  Provinces  of  the  Heel,  the 
Provinces  of  the  Toe  and  Sicily.  In  those  portions 
of  the  following  consideration  topicalized  as  zones, 
the  distinctions  are  made,  because  the  regions  dealt 
with  have  all  their  general  social  conditions  very 
largely  shaped  by  the  subtle  cumulative  influence  of 
the  life  in  the  two  great  cities,  Rome  and  Naples.  It  is 
possible  that  few  Italians  are  aware  of  the  differences, 
but  they  are  palpable  to  an  outsider  immediately. 
Every  village  that  is  within  touch  of  either  the  Italian 
capital  or  the  most  important  port  and  city  partakes  of 
the  markedly  contradistinct  life  of  the  two.  If  Naples 
is  correctly  called  a  City  of  Thieves,  then  is  Rome 
equally  well  named  a  City  of  Institutions,  and  there  is 
the  difference.  Abruzzi,  Molise  and  Puglie  (Apulia), 
having  greater  extents  of  plain  suited  to  agriculture 
than  any  of  the  other  southern  provinces  and  being 
farther  from  the  emigration  centres  on  the  west  side 
of  the  peninsula,  form  a  group  by  themselves  under 
the  title  Provinces  of  the  Heel.  Basilicata  (Potenza) 
and  Calabria,  being  nearly  uniformly  mountainous  even 
out  to  the  sea  line  and  having  the  most  potent  influ- 
ences at  work  to  urge  emigration,  are  considered  under 
Provinces  of  the  Toe;  while,  as  for  conditions  in  Sicily, 


50      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

they  are  best  told  in  connection  with  our  own  ex- 
periences there  with  the  people  of  Gualtieri-Sicamino 
and  other  towns. 

As  for  general  comparative  conditions  of  educa- 
tion, amount  of  emigration  and  a  very  interesting  side- 
light on  the  Italian  administrative  attitude  towards 
emigration,  I  give  a  translation  of  an  article  which  ap- 
peared some  months  since  in  //  Progresso  Halo-Amer- 
icano, of  New  York,  a  newspaper  of  importance,  and 
one  which  is  usually  able  to  reflect  the  Italian  govern- 
ment's position  in  anything  that  pertains  to  social  and 
educational  subjects.  The  article,  which  is  editorial, 
reads: 

"EMIGRATION   AND   EDUCATION 

"The  Bureau  of  Education  in  Rome  has  recently 
received  the  following  telegram  from  Inspector  Adolfo 
Rossi,  who  is  at  present  in  South  Africa.' 

"  '  According  to  the  decree  already  published  in  the 
Official  Gazette,  the  landing  of  illiterate  immigrants  at 
Cape  Town  shall  be  prohibited.' 

"South  Africa  now  follows  Australia  and  British 
Columbia,  and  before  long  the  United  States  will 
emulate  their  example. 

"  The  law  already  approved  by  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives is  now  before  the  Senate,  being  favorably 
reported  by  the  Senate  Committee,  and  from  the  last 
message  of  President  Roosevelt  (of  which  the  readers 
of  //  Progresso  are  not  ignorant)  it  is  evident  it  will 
have  all  the  support  of  the  Presidential  power.  What 
will  then  become  of  our  emigration,  and  particularly 
that  from  the  southern  provinces  ?  This  has  been  a 
frequent  question,  and  it  is  now  becoming  acute.  A 
comparison  between  the  grand  total  of  permanent 
emigration  from  the  Neapolitan  provinces  for  the  first 
six  months  of  the  year,  and  the  percentage  of  illiteracy 
shown  by  the  last  compulsory  enrollment  of  troops  is 
necessary,  in  order  to  comprehend  the  terrible  menace 


Peasant  Types 


Abruzzi 

28,412 

Campania 

41,066 

Apulia 

8,434 

Basilicata 

7,840 

Calabria 

21,262 

THE   NEAPOLITAN    ZONE     51 

hanging  over  those  regions,  and  the  duties  devolving 
upon  the  officials  directing  affairs. 

"The  following  tables  give  the  statistics  referred  to: 

Emigration  for  Six  Months  Illiteracy 

49.59  per  cent. 
44.05    "      " 
53.05    "      " 

52I3    "      " 
55.02    "      " 

"  During  the  first  ten  months  of  1902  there  emigrated 
from  Naples  to  the  United  States  145,629,  of  which 
number  more  than  eighty-eight  per  cent  were  over 
ten  years  of  age. 

"  Given  the  application  of  the  law  presented  to  Con- 
gress at  Washington  by  the  Hon.  Mr.  Shattuc,  with 
amendments  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Underwood,  about  70,000 
persons  from  the  Neapolitan  provinces  alone  would 
have  been  returned  from  the  American  ports  during 
the  period  mentioned.  The  following  extract  is  taken 
from  the  report  of  the  Senate  Committee: 

"  '  While  we  are  spending  millions  to  eradicate  from 
our  country  the  evil  of  illiteracy,  we  are  opening  our 
doors  to  illiterate  men  of  all  nations.  One  may  have 
the  opinion  that  education  is  not  a  guaranty  of  char- 
acter, any  more  than  the  want  of  education  may  be  of 
dishonesty,  but  it  is  undoubted  that  education  consti- 
tutes the  fundamental  basis  of  any  moral  and 
intellectual  progress.' 

"The  last  message  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States  contains  the  following: 

"  '  The  second  object  of  an  immigration  law  should 
be  that  of  ascertaining,  by  means  of  an  accurate  ex- 
amination and  not  one  simply  relative  to  illiteracy, 
whether  the  immigrant  has  the  intellectual  capacity  of 
being  able  to  act  healthfully  and  judiciously  as  an 
American  citizen.' 

"In  view  of  such  danger,  what  action  remains  to  be 
taken?  it  is  illusory  to  hope  that  the  action  of  our 
diplomacy  (no  matter  what  eminent  statesmen  we 
may  have)  can  succeed  in  preventing  the  enactment  of 


52      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

the  law  in  America,  any  more  than  it  could  have  pre- 
vented such  action  in  Australia,  British  Columbia  or 
Cape  Colony. 

"We  can  only  endeavor  to  maintain  for  as  long  as 
possible  the  openings  which  we  at  present  have  for 
our  emigration,  and  to  endeavor  to  acquire  new  ones, 
as,  for  instance,  the  Transvaal  mines.  A  strong 
economic  crisis  continues  in  the  Argentine  Republic, 
and  at  present  immigration  is  necessarily  suspended. 
In  Brazil,  where  there  is  still  much  field  for  opportu- 
nities, it  would  be  heartless  to  encourage  our  emigrants 
and  afterwards  see  them  in  the  'fazendas,'  treated 
with  inhumanity  and  oppression,  without  being  able 
to  render  them  any  effectual  protection. 

"On  the  other  hand  it  is  a  duty  of  the  Italian  state 
energetically  to  provide  for  the  education  of  the  south- 
ern proletarian  masses,  which  the  local  administrations 
cannot  do,  deprived  as  they  are  of  resources  and  op- 
pressed by  debts  and  taxation.  In  the  south  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  State  to  conduct,  at  least  in  the  minor 
communities,  the  elementary  education,  causing  the 
communities  to  contribute  only  in  accordance  with 
their  means,  thereby  avoiding  an  unnecessary  ag- 
gravation of  their  present  condition.  As  stated  by  the 
Honorable  Sonnino  in  his  speech  in  Maddaloni  Hall, 
Naples,  modern  Italy  has  so  far  deplorably  failed  in 
the  first  of  its  duties  to  civilization:  that  of  giving 
primary  education  to  the  poor  masses  of  its  most  un- 
fortunate provinces. 

"  It  is  now  time  to  resolve  for  energetic  action,  in 
order    to   eradicate  from   one-half    the   kingdom   of 
Italy   the  stigma  of  being  the  leading  nation  of  Chris- 
tian Europe  in  illiteracy.     Considerations  of  prudence 
as  well  as  humanity  advise  us  to  take  such  a  step." 

In  a  word,  nearly  half  of  the  people  are  unable  to 
read  and  write  in  Italia  Meridionale,  because  the  com- 
munes are  too  poor  to  pay  the  expenses  of  maintain- 
ing schools  except  in  the  larger  towns  and  cities.  The 
attitude  of  the  Italian  government  is  very  nicely  shown 


THE   NEAPOLITAN   ZONE     53 

also.  It  looks  on  emigration  as  the  only  safety-valve 
for  the  districts  which  are  over-populated,  and  recent 
years  have  proved  that  an  immense  improvement  al- 
ways follows  in  any  village  when  the  proportion  of  its 
emigration  rises  above  ten  per  cent.  The  reason  is  that 
the  Italians  in  America,  South  America,  South  Africa  and 
Australia  save  enough  money  to  send  home  enormous 
sums  to  their  relatives,  with  the  result  that  in  Basilicata, 
for  instance,  which  has  been  heavily  drained  bv 
emigration,  there  are  entire  communities  in  a  flourishing 
condition  solely  on  the  savings  of  their  emigrants. 
By  most  careful  estimates,  made  by  comparison  ot 
consular  reports  with  Italo-American  banking  state- 
ments, the  Italian  money  post,  and  the  statistics  of  the 
Italian  Bureau  of  Emigration,  I  have  concluded  that 
in  the  year  1902  between  $62,000,000  and  $jo,ooo,- 
000  was  sent  home  to  Italy  from  the  United  States 
alone.  In  the  year  1903  between  $57,000,000  and 
$6), 000,000  was  the  estimated  amount. 

The  decrease  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  great 
increase  in  the  number  coming  over  to  join  those  in 
the  United  States  who  had  been  sending  them  money. 
A  great  difficulty  that  blocks  accuracy  in  these  things 
is  the  concealment  of  funds  by  returning  emigrants 
and  by  recipients  of  money  in  Italy.  I  found  a  family 
in  Caivano,  near  Naples,  for  instance,  who  received 
through  a  cousin  who  returned  to  Italy  on  the  Lahn, 
at  the  same  time  with  us,  $3,500,  jointly  sent  by  a 
father  and  three  sons  working  in  the  mills  in  Birming- 
ham, Ala.  Only  by  chance  did  I  learn  of  it,  and  then 
they  besought  me  to  keep  their  secret,  fearing  that 
"the  King  would  get  it."  When  the  Italian  pays  his 
two  or  three  per  cent  to  the  government  he  says,  "it 
has  gone  to  the  King."     H.  J.  W.  Dam's  "The  Tax 


54      IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

on  Moustaches"  very  nicely  touches  up  this  matter  of 
national  taxes  in  Italy.  I  know  personally  of  a  large 
number  of  instances  of  returning  emigrants  carrying 
large  sums  of  money  with  them,  and  I  have  the  state- 
ments of  scores  of  money-changers  to  whom  American 
dollars  are  sold ;  so  that  I  feel  justified  in  saying  that  a  very 
large  portion  of  the  emigrant  savings  goes  home  clan- 
destinely and  is  never  caught  in  the  government  net, 
yet  blessed  is  the  lot  of  the  tax-collector  in  a  village 
which  has  twenty  or  more  per  cent  of  its  native-born 
in  America.  His  lot  is  an  easy  one  compared  with  the 
corresponding  official  in  a  village  of  small  emigration. 

Particularly  as  to  conditions  in  the  zone  of  Neapolitan 
influence,  emigration  is  the  most  important  feature  of 
life  there  to-day,  for  the  reason  that  the  emigration  from 
Campania  has  been  and  is  enormous,  and  that,  should 
Naples  suddenly  cease  to  be  the  greatest  of  all  ports  of 
embarkation,  a  financial  paralysis  would  strike  the  city 
and  province. 

Over  large  districts,  the  vital  arteries  of  which  are 
the  river  valleys  of  the  Volturno  and  Garigliano  and 
the  country  back  from  the  Gulf  of  Naples  and  the  Bay 
of  Salerno,  the  influence  of  Naples  obtains,  and  its 
dominant  tone,  as  has  been  said,  is  dishonesty. 
Naturally,  since  Naples  is  the  metropolis  of  the  region, 
the  Neapolitan  point  of  view  is  the  one  emulated,  and 
though  I  have  seen  many  types  of  lying,  lazy,  morally 
oblique  peoples,  I  have  never  dwelt  among  any  where 
a  constant  exercise  of  one's  vigilance  on  the  defensive 
was  so  absolutely  necessary. 

A  rather  good  story  which  illustrates  the  propensities 
of  the  Neapolitans  was  told  me  by  an  Englishman 
whom  I  met  in  Caserta.  According  to  his  relation,  a 
German  Jew,  a  Scotchman  and  a  Connecticut  Yankee 


THE  NEAPOLITAN    ZONE     55 

formed  a  company  for  the  exportation  of  wine  from 
Naples  and  went  there  to  set  up  business.  After  being 
in  the  city  several  days,  and  having  a  few  business 
transactions  with  the  Neapolitans,  the  Yankee  said  to 
his  partners: 

"Well,  boys,  we  had  better  settle  down  and  live 
here  for  about  ten  years  until  we  learn  a  few  tricks  and 
then  start  business,  or  we  had  better  give  these  chaps 
all  we  have  at  once  and  save  them  the  trouble  of  taking 
it  away  from  us." 

From  Frosinone  south  to  the  valley  of  the  Sele  and 
back  as  far  as  Ariano  we  found  even  the  simple- 
minded  peasants  to  have  that  touch  of  Neapolitanism, 
which  is,  to  say  the  least,  an  undesirable  characteristic. 
In  the  city  itself  it  is  so  serious  that  not  many  years 
since  the  organized  ruffians  of  the  Cammora,  recruited 
from  all  stations  of  society,  were  a  power  of  terror, 
and  since  then  men  more  polite,  but  just  as  criminal, 
bankrupted  the  city  and  brought  general  conditions  to 
such  a  pass  that  the  national  government  was  forced 
to  step  in  and  take  control  till  municipal  and  provincial 
affairs  could  be  put  on  an  honest  and  paying  basis. 
The  people  are  more  noisy,  more  gross  in  their  habits, 
and  more  irresponsible  in  their  conduct  than  any  class 
in  any  part  of  Italy.  Constant  change  of  government 
in  the  past,  lack  of  things  of  an  institutional  nature 
and  the  focusing  of  all  the  bad  in  the  south  of  Italy 
may  have  had  the  degenerating  effect;  but,  whatever 
the  cause,  the  effect  exists,  and  the  social  virus  seems 
to  have  poisoned  many  a  man  I  know  who,  but  for 
his  brief  stays  in  Naples,  would  be  a  very  decent 
citizen,  either  in  his  native  town,  in  other  provinces,  or 
in  his  new  home  in  America.  The  bad  Italians  in  the 
United  States  are  in  clusters,  and  the  heads  of  the 


c6      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

majority  of  these  groups  are  men  trained  in  theft, 
trickery  and  crime  in  the  excellent  schools  of  Naples 
and  Palermo. 

In  the  city  there  are  few  factories,  though  the  gov- 
ernment is  bringing  every  influence  to  bear  to  promote 
industries  in  Naples,  and  under  the  new  municipal 
plan  a  large  tract  of  the  side  of  the  city  that  lies 
towards  Vesuvius  is  arranged  for  factory  sites;  but 
there  are  three  important  things  lacking:  raw  material, 
skilled  labor  and  confident  capital.  Even  the  excellent 
street-car  system  is  controlled  by  Belgians.  The  north 
of  Italy  continues  to  be  the  industrial  section.  The 
business  that  emigration  engenders  is  first  in  im- 
portance. Vesuvius,  Pompeii,  the  Bay  and  the  climate 
form  the  next  important  asset,  and  the  exportation  of 
agricultural  products  and  wholesale  business  of  all 
sorts  the  third.  Two  hundred  thousand  people  in  the 
city  live  on  so  little  a  year  that  the  statement  of  the 
amount  would  sound  ridiculous. 

We  traversed  the  country  of  the  arbitrarily  indicated 
zone  in  the  time  of  the  full  harvest,  when  the  bits  of  plain 
on  which  rows  of  trees,  themselves  loaded  with  fruit, 
were  seen  to  be  the  supports  of  miles  of  running  vines 
bearing  great  bunches  of  grapes,  heavily  covered  with 
dust.  In  every  village  were  to  be  seen  the  hemp 
workers,  where  the  long  stripped  stalks  were  piled  up 
in  bound  bundles  waiting  to  be  laid  in  the  mangling 
machines,  operated  as  a  rule  by  women  and  hand- 
mangled.  On  carefully  brushed  stone  squares  men, 
women  and  children  were  threshing  beans  and  peas. 
Before  every  door  were  flat  shallow  troughs  in  which 
figs  or  fruit  of  some  sort  were  drying.  On  the  house- 
tops the  tomatoes  were  being  converted  into  a  dark 
red  mash,  which  is  called  pomidoro  and  is 'used  to 


Mangling  Hemp 


THE  NEAPOLITAN   ZONE    57 

make  the  delicious  sauces  with  which  macaroni  is 
dressed.  Long-horned  oxen  or  patient  donkeys,  with 
now  and  then  an  undersized  horse,  drew  along  the 
dusty  highways  carts  loaded  with  casks  made  ready  for 
wine,  bundles  of  hemp  stalks  or  shocks  of  wheat.  In 
every  village  were  to  be  seen  the  several  offices  of  the 
steamship  companies'  sub-agents.  The  countryside 
simply  teemed  with  life.  There  was  never  a  spot 
where  one  might  stand  and,  though  there  was  no  one 
in  sight,  not  hear  voices  all  about.  In  nearly  everv 
group  of  people  was  to  be  seen  one  or  more  who  bore 
the  signs  of  recent  return  from  America  or  indications 
of  near  departure.  Over  everything  lay  the  white  dust 
from  the  dry  plains  and  slopes,  and  the  sun  beat  down 
with  distracting  fervor. 

It  did  not  seem  to  me  that  in  the  country  districts  of 
the  Neapolitan  zone  the  Church  exercised  quite  the 
influence  for  good  or  evil  in  the  material  affairs  of  the 
people  that  it  does  elsewhere  in  Italia  Meridionale,  ana 
it  was  noticeable  that  the  people  had  stronger  commer- 
cial instincts,  being  more  inclined  to  buy  and  sell  if 
given  the  opportunity.  That  finds  an  expression  in 
America  in  this  way.  So  many  of  the  lace-workers, 
barrow-men,  coal,  wood  and  ice  men  are  Neapolitans, 
or  are  from  the  villages  in  the  Neapolitan  zone.  But, 
in  the  social  organization  of  the  countryside  everything 
led  to  the  impression  that,  as  each  child  grew  up,  his  or 
her  elders  forced  a  place  in  the  already  existing  throng 
for  him  or  her,  a  place  wherein  a  bit  to  eat  and  a  scrap 
to  wear  might  be  won,  and  above  that  place  the  child 
could  scarcely  hope  to  rise,  inasmuch  as  it  was  difficult 
to  maintain  the  foothold,  let  alone  improve  it.  Those 
who  were  unfit  for  the  struggle  became  beggars  and 
wanderers,  not  paupers  in  the  Italian  sense,  for  the  Ital- 


58      IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

ian  pauper  is  a  person  not  only  penniless,  homeless  and 
friendless,  but  physically  incapable  of  taking  any  care 
of  himself  whatever.  The  inmates  of  the  Reclusario 
of  Naples  are  the  most  shocking  lot  of  human  wrecks 
I  have  ever  beheld  aggregated. 

If  a  family  or  group  of  families  is  suddenly  deprived 
of  the  source  from  which  it  has  been  eking  a 
slender  livelihood,  the  desperation  to  which  it  is 
driven  is  well  instanced  by  the  terrible  tragedy  at  Torre- 
Annunziata.  Immediately  on  hearing  of  the  first  out- 
break there,  I  took  up  the  investigation,  and  in  brief  this 
is  the  story  of  the  occurrence. 

It  was  merely  one  of  those  risings  of  the  common 
people  which  occur  every  now  and  then,  and  in  which 
they  uniformly  get  the  worst  of  it.  It  seems  that  the 
estate  owned  by  the  Ferroni  Corporation  had  for  fifteen 
years  been  allowing  the  farmers  about  Sarno,  Castel- 
lamare-Torre-Annunziata,  to  have  cheaply  certain  waste 
materials  for  fertilizing  their  farms.  These  were  sud- 
denly cut  off,  and  the  tenants  demanded  the  immediate 
delivery  of  the  manure  for  their  common  use,  but  to 
their  demand  no  attention  was  paid. 

This  led  to  a  discontent,  which  it  is  claimed  was  fos- 
tered by  the  local  Chamber  of  Labor,  and  they  were 
exhorted  by  a  Socialist  by  the  name  of  Vincenzo  Pre- 
senzano  with  the  result  that  on  the  31st  of  August  over 
two  hundred  of  them,  armed  with  sticks,  forks,  spades 
and  stones,  gathered  on  the  property  of  one  Gennaro 
Salto  and  stopped  the  carts  coming  from  the  estate  with 
the  material,  and,  the  high  iron  bridge  over  the  River 
Sarno  being  close  at  hand, they  dumped  the  entire  out- 
fit into  the  deeps. 

Five  municipal  guards  and  two  city  officials  inter- 
vened in  an  endeavor  to  maintain  order;  but  by  this 


THE   NEAPOLITAN    ZONE    59 

time  the  crowd  had  grown  to  over  five  hundred,  and, 
after  securing  information  for  making  arrests,  they  re- 
tired. 

In  a  little  while  there  arrived  a  small  force  of  Cara- 
bineers, city  and  municipal  guards,  and  they  were  so  out- 
numbered by  the  rioters  that  the  latter  attacked  them 
vigorously.  The  commandant  of  the  municipal  guard 
and  one  Carabineer  fell  wounded. 

Then  the  order  to  fire  into  the  mob  was  given.  It 
was  the  claim  of  the  military  that  the  first  shots  were 
fired  into  the  air,  but  men  who  were  in  the  mob  averred 
that  they  opened  fire  even  before  the  commandant  was 
wounded. 

Men,  women  and  children  withered  away  before  the 
blazing  rifles  like  so  much  grass,  and,  when  the  mob  had 
dispersed,  three  lay  dead  on  the  grass,  two  more  of  the 
wounded  died  in  a  short  time,  and  four  were  known  to 
be  in  a  very  serious  condition,  while  numbers  of  others 
were  hurt.  The  exact  number  did  not  even  come  out  at 
the  investigation  which  was  ordered  by  the  government. 

When  I  visited  the  commune  it  seemed  as  if  a  plague 
had  fallen.  More  soldiers  were  being  hurried  to  the 
district  and  posted  in  spots  to  command  the  situation, 
arrests  were  being  made,  even  in  houses  where  the  dead 
lay;  but  a  terrible  silence  hung  over  both  military  and 
populace.  I  talked  with  one  of  the  Carabineers,  and  he 
told  me  he  could  never  forgive  himself  for  helping  to 
shoot  down  his  own  people,  and  that  he  longed  for  the 
day  when  he  could  leave  the  service.  It  was  the  sec- 
ond disturbance  in  which  he  had  been,  and  in  both  cases 
the  sufferers  were  the  simple-minded  peasantry  who, 
finding  themselves  deprived  of  what  they  regarded  as 
their  just  rights,  had  been  incited  to  violence  by  So- 
cialists. 


6o      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

The  disgra^ia  made  a  profound  impression  through- 
out the  kingdom,  and  more  than  one  resident  foreigner 
in  speaking  of  the  subject  remarked:  "  Some  day  there 
is  going  to  be  more  than  that.  The  people  who  really 
work  and  produce  something  in  this  country  are  getting 
about  tired  of  paying  enormous  rents  to  support  the 
aristocrats,  and  heavy  tithes  and  taxes  to  maintain  the 
Church,  the  army,  and  a  government  of  splendor.  We 
expect  trouble,  and  that  before  long." 

The  Socialists  are  growing,  and  a  paper  called  Avanli, 
published  in  Rome,  is  the  chief  organ  of  the  malcon- 
tents. During  our  stay  in  Italy  it  made  a  number  of 
successful  exposes  of  ministerial  and  official  derelictions 
and  won  suits  brought  against  it  in  retaliation,  while 
numerous  illustrated  weeklies  indulged  in  caricatures 
and  cartoons  of  the  Pope,  cardinals  and  ministers,  that 
seemed  to  meet  with  great  popular  favor;  but  my  ob- 
servation was  that  socialism  as  a  principle  was  not 
generally  understood  by  the  masses,  and  the  only  rea- 
son that  the  socialistic  groups  have  much  following  was 
Decause  they  are  against  things  as  they  are  rather  than 
for  socialism  as  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  what  they 
should  be.  Socialism  as  a  political  belief  is  not  being 
readily  transplanted  to  this  country  by  any  class  of  the 
emigrants  except  the  educated  emigrants  from  the 
north  and  in  and  about  Rome. 


CHAPTER  V 

IN  THE  ROMAN  ZONE 

FROM  the  Sabine  Mountains  to  the  sea,  south  to 
Frosinone  and  north  to  Siena  is  that  section  of 
the  peninsula  which,  it  seems  to  me,  is  so 
greatly  affected  by  life  and  conditions  in  Rome  as  to 
be  set  off  properly  as  the  Roman  zone.  It  includes  the 
greater  portion  of  the  provinces  of  Romagna  Lazio,  or 
Latium  and  Umbria,  and  the  lower  portion  of  Tuscany. 

The  greatest  positive  influence  in  Italy  to-day  is  the 
Church ;  the  greatest  potentiality,  the  army  and  the  mili- 
tary party;  the  greatest  question,  the  condition  of  the 
peasantry  of  Italia  Meridionale;  the  greatest  danger  to 
the  nation  as  a  nation,  the  bitterness  between  the  people 
of  the  great  and  prosperous  provinces  of  the  north 
and  the  less  favored  ones  of  the  south. 

As  the  centre  of  the  world-wide  Catholic  Church, 
of  the  political  and  military  interests  of  the  kingdom, 
of  art,  education  and  literature,  modern  Rome  is  a  city 
of  institutions,  and  her  citizens  are  parasites  in  precisely 
the  same  way  that  a  majority  of  the  population  of 
Washington  is  parasitical.  I  have  not  at  hand  the  fig- 
ures to  show  which  city  has  the  greater  proportion  of 
industries,  but  I  think  there  is  little  difference. 

All  through  the  region  are  quarries  from  which  are 
taken  the  material  consumed  in  the  thousands  of 
studios  that  produce  the  enormous  volume  of  copies 
of  noted  pieces  of  statuary  and  the  slenderer  stream  of 
new  creations  which  pours  out  of  Rome  and  disperses 


62      IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

to  other  parts  of  the  Continent,  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States.  The  amount  of  art  copies  bought  in 
Rome  by  American  tourists  each  season  is  very  large, 
much  larger  than  is  generally  known,  and  forms  the 
most  important  source  of  revenue  to  the  people  of  the 
Roman  zone,  aside  from  the  dispersion  of  government 
funds,  church  funds  and  the  compensation  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  hosts  of  tourists  and  art,  musical  and 
theological  students.  Next  in  industrial  importance  to 
the  stone-workers  come  the  operations  that  pertain  to 
silk  and  to  the  making  of  imitation  jewelry,  of  which 
latter  pursuit  Rome  is  certainly  the  incomparable  cen- 
tre. Hundreds  of  shops  in  Italy  display  Roman  imita- 
tions that  are  nowhere  excelled,  and  thousands  of 
workmen  in  imitation  flowers,  jewels,  etc.,  are  com- 
ing into  the  United  States,  establishing  themselves  in 
the  New  World  in  their  old  vocations  and  finding 
things  very  prosperous  indeed.  In  the  vicinity  of  the 
tenement  house  in  which  we  lived  on  Houston  Street, 
down  West  Broadway  and  elsewhere  in  New  York, 
are  scores  of  establishments  engaged  in  this  very  busi- 
ness, and  all  the  workmen  are  Italians,  from  the  zone 
of  Rome  for  the  most  part.  All  over  the  United  States 
the  industry  of  designing,  cutting  and  establishing 
marble  and  granite  pieces  of  all  sorts  for  cemeteries  is 
rapidly  passing  into  the  hands  of  Italians,  and  in  ques- 
tioning many  of  them,  in  various  parts  of  the  country, 
as  to  their  native  provinces,  they  have  replied  uniformly, 
the  Roman  Campania  or  Tuscany. 

The  silk-weavers  and  hat-makers  have  centred  in 
New  Jersey,  and  in  Newark  vie  with  the  Jews,  while  in 
Paterson  they  have  the  lists  more  nearly  to  themselves. 
In  Italy  the  class  of  workmen  so  engaged  forms  a 
ready  field  for  the  operations  of  socialistic  and  anarchis- 


IN   THE  ROMAN   ZONE       63 

tic  agitators ;  and  though  the  fruit  of  their  labors  is  ren- 
dered comparatively  harmless  in  Italy  owing  to  the 
vigilance  of  the  police  and  secret  service,  in  the  United 
States,  where  there  is  freedom  of  speech,  the  fuller  har- 
vest is  reaped  and  the  greatest  danger  exists. 

Back  of  these  conditions  lies  the  contempt  which 
these  people  have  come  to  hold,  in  the  Roman  zone, 
for  both  Church  and  State,  and  the  reason  is  that  to 
them  both  St.  Peter's  and  the  Quirinal  and  all  they  rep- 
resent are  things  far  more  ordinary  and  less  impressive 
than  to  the  populace  of  the  remoter  provinces.  Polit- 
ical and  religious  skepticism  is  growing  to  be  as  dan- 
gerously common  among  the  poor  people  in  and  about 
Rome  as  it  was  in  France  early  last  century.  Many 
social  conditions  are  accurately  reproduced,  and  there 
are  wise  patriots  who  dread  a  repetition  in  Italy  of 
what  followed  the  14th  of  July,  1789,  in  France. 

These  things  really  concern  the  people  of  the  great 
northern  provinces  but  little.  They  are  busy  and  pros- 
perous, educated  and  advanced,  and,  though  within  the 
boundaries  of  the  same  nation,  they  are  very  distinctly 
apart. 

1  can  easily  understand  the  attitude  of  the  common 
people  in  the  Roman  zone  toward  the  aristocracy. 
The  representatives  of  this  class  were  returning  in 
full  force  to  Rome  only  about  the  time  we  left  it,  but 
we  had  abundant  opportunity  in  both  Naples  and 
Rome  for  getting  something  near  the  proper  measure 
of  these  idling,  pleasure-seeking,  self-sufficient  land- 
holders. Having  their  position  by  right  of  birth,  and 
given  every  advantage  of  the  European  civilization  as 
a  result  of  rent-rolls  from  huge  inherited  estates,  we 
found  them  to  be,  nevertheless,  insolent,  shallow,  de- 
generate physically,  vicious  and  so  thoroughly  unfit  as 


64      IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

a  class  for  the  responsibilities  of  the  rich  and  high- 
placed  that,  if  I  had  the  choice  between  admitting  to 
the  United  States  a  wealthy  educated  Roman  noble- 
man and  a  poor  Calabrese  contract  laborer  unable  to 
read  or  write,   I  should  choose  the  laborer  every  time. 

Though  the  numbers  of  the  middle  class  are  lament- 
ably small  even  in  Rome,  there  is  a  greater  and  more 
deplorable  paucity  farther  south.  In  the  agricultural 
districts  a  man  is  either  a  laboring  tenant  or  a  land- 
holder, except  for  those  few  who  are  village  artisans, 
tradesmen,  or  are  in  the  liberal  professions.  It  requires 
well-divided  ownership  of  land  or  diversified  indus- 
tries.,as  in  the  United  States,  to  create  that  sturdy  en- 
lightened and  independent  middle  class  which  is  the 
strength  of  any  nation.  The  army  of  returned  emi- 
grants are  the  nearest  approach  to  a  middle  class  to  be 
found  in  many  of  the  southern  communes. 

A  man  should  certainly  be  able,  under  nearly  all  cir- 
cumstances, to  find  a  better  use  for  his  pen  than  in  utter- 
ing derogatory  statements  concerning  any  other  man 
or  class  of  men  engaged  in  the  service  of.  God, 
no  matter  what  their  beliefs  or  his  own  convictions 
may  be;  but  the  relation  of  the  Italian  priests  to  the 
millions  of  emigrants  that  have  come  or  will  come  to 
the  United  States  is  of  such  importance  that  it  would 
be  cowardly  not  to  give  an  honest  expression  concern- 
ing them.  In  a  general  sort  of  way  the  poor  provinces 
are  referred  to,  just  as  is  Spain,  as  "priest-ridden"; 
but  to  the  average  American  that  is  a  term  of  indefin- 
iteness. 

The  thought  of  a  Catholic  cleric  always  brings  to  my 
mind  the  memory  of  the  Rt.  Rev.  M.  F.  Howley,  F. 
R.  S.  C,  the  noble  and  self-sacrificing  Bishop  of  New- 
foundland; of  Father  Tommaso  laboring  among  the 


Morning  in  the  Village  and  Vineyards 


IN   THE   ROMAN    ZONE        65 

poor  Italian  miners  of  the  Pennsylvania  anthracite 
regions;  of  priests  in  frontier  missions  of  the  great 
Canadian  Northwest;  of  priests  in  the  slums  of  New 
York,  Chicago,  Cincinnati,  and  other  cities;  of  men 
whom  I  know,  admire,  and  revere.  So,  judging  the 
Italian  clergy  by  them  and  by  them  alone,  I  do  not  be- 
lieve prejudice  of  any  sort  could  be  charged  against 
what  is  hereafter  said. 

Nor  is  it  the  Italian  clergy  as  a  whole  or  a  major  por- 
tion that  is  open  to  criticism,  except  as  it  contributes 
to  the  continuance  of  the  oppressive,  vitiating  system 
whose  acute  wrongs  are  wrought  by  the  minority  in 
the  cloth. 

Rome,  as  the  centre  of  the  tremendous  fabric  of  the 
Church,  witnesses  not  only  the  focussing  of  the  benefi- 
cent operations  of  the  Church  at  large,  but  of  the  con- 
demnable  workings  of  the  provincial  clerics  as  well. 
There  the  true  root  of  the  trouble  is  most  nearly  laid 
bare,  and  it  seems  strange  indeed  that  something  so 
unworthy  should  exist  under  the  very  walls  of  the 
Vatican. 

This  basic  condition  is  the  propensity  of  indolent 
young  men,  sons  of  impoverished  families  of  quality, 
sickly  youths  unfit  for  more  strenuous  pursuits,  and  de- 
signing and  ambitious  students,  to  turn  to  the  priest- 
hood as  affording  them  the  prospect  of  a  lifelong 
"soft  snap."  They  do  this,  and  are  supported  in  it  by 
their  families,  without  the  slightest  regard,  as  a  rule,  to 
any  truly  religious  considerations  whatever.  Italy  is 
greatly  overcrowded.  Opportunities  to  rise  in  life  are 
very  few  indeed.  The  man  is  fortunate  who  can  ho'd 
what  his  father  attained.  England  has  suffered  and  is 
suffering  from  the  incompetence  of  those  younger  sons 
of  good  families  who  have  turned  to  the  church,  army, 


66      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

and  similar  professions.  In  Italy  the  diversity  of  pur- 
suits is  still  smaller  than  in  England,  and  the  candi- 
dates far  greater  in  number,  while  the  examples  of 
Italian  priests  who  have  risen  to  bishoprics,  arch- 
bishoprics, the  cardinal's  hat,  and  even  the  pontifical 
chair  are  so  constantly  before  them,  that  men  who  are 
really  fitted  by  nature  and  fibre  for  the  priesthood  are 
crowded  out  to  make  way  for  those  who  are  unfit  and 
never  become  fit.  Rome,  more  than  all  other  cities, 
sees  them  in  the  early  stages  of  their  evil  progress,  and 
they  take  on  cant,  hypocrisy,  and  prejudice  there  which, 
mingled  with  unscrupulousness,  and  often  with  vicious 
propensities,  make  them  a  cloaked  harass  indeed  to 
the  poor  people  of  the  parishes  in  which  they  are  later 
established. 

In  the  villages  of  the  provinces  where  the  people  are 
poorly  educated,  the  priests  have  nearly  an  absolute 
control  of  local  affairs.  I  do  not  mean  in  any  way  that 
pertains  to  the  business  of  the  commune  or  as  to  its 
officials,  or  the  proceedings  of  law,  but  the  deeper 
current  of  life.  A  newly  established  school  will  thrive 
or  fail  just  as  the  village  priests  favor  it  or  inveigh 
against  it.  The  holidays  are  the  feast  days  of  the  pa- 
tron saints,  and  it  depends  upon  the  priests  whether 
these  days  are  mere  occasions  for  bearing  a  painted 
and  carved  figure  of  a  saint  through  the  streets  to  be 
loaded  with  gifts  of  money  and  valuables  by  the  pop- 
ulace, or  whether  they  shall  be  made  occasions  of  re- 
laxation and  communal  development  to  the  people.  A 
very  great  deal  of  letter-writing  is  done  by  the  priests 
for  illiterate  parishioners,  so  that  much  of  the  corre- 
spondence between  emigrants  in  America  and  relatives 
at  home  passes  through  the  priests'  hands.  Not  in- 
frequently priests  are  money-lenders  and  take  their 


IN   THE   ROMAN    ZONE        67 

usury  just  as  might  the  veriest  Shylock,  only  that 
their  loan  is  a  "charitable  advance  to  an  unfortunate 
parishioner."  An  interesting  incident  of  this  sort  of 
thing  happened  at  Velletri.  An  old  priest  of  one  of 
the  churches  of  the  town  had  two  brothers  for  parish- 
ioners who  desired  to  emigrate  to  America.  One  was 
named  Giuseppe  and  the  other  Giacomo.  They  had 
barely  money  enough  for  one  passage,  though  Giu- 
seppe had  a  tiny  bit  of  property.  Both  had  borrowed 
money  of  the  old  priest  before  and  paid  it  back  with  a 
high  rate  of  interest.  They  plotted  to  get  even  with 
him.  Giuseppe  turned  the  care  of  his  bit  of  property 
over  to  Giacomo  and  sailed  for  America.  In  a  few 
months  Giacomo  went  to  the  priest  and  offered  as  se- 
curity for  a  loan  of  300  lire  the  property  which  did 
not  belong  to  him.  The  old  priest  took  a  note  of 
temporary  conveyance,  installed  one  of  his  dependents 
in  the  property,  gave  Giacomo  the  300  lire  at  twenty 
per  cent  per  annum,  and  Giacomo  went  to  Naples 
and  sailed  for  New  York.  At  the  end  of  two  years 
the  old  priest  was  beginning  to  consider  the  property 
already  his,  when  Giuseppe  came  home  on  a  visit, 
proved  that  his  brother  had  no  right  to  offer  the  property 
as  security,  and  forced  the  priest  to  pay  rent  for  it  for 
two  years.  Giacomo  was  of  course  safe  from  harm 
in  America.  Giuseppe  sold  the  property  and  returned, 
and  is  now  in  partnership  with  his  brother  in  a  little 
business  on  Vine  Street,  Cincinnati. 

In  an  effort  to  maintain  in  the  eyes  of  their  parish- 
ioners their  own  outward  show  of  virtue,  priests  whose 
lives  have  vicious  tendencies  often  commit  crimes 
that  are  worse  than  murder.  The  attitude  of  the 
Church  toward  an  adulteress  is  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge.     When  it  is  said  that  the  judging  of  the 


68      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

women  of  their  parish  is  left  in  the  hands  of  the 
priests,  and  that  in  small  communities  a  woman  dis- 
graced by  such  judgment  has  no  opportunity  of  hiding 
it  from  her  neighbors,  the  terrible  power  of  the  padre 
can  be  seen.  There  is  scarcely  a  community  which 
has  not  its  pathetic  story;  some  have  many,  and  I 
have  heard  more  than  one  told  in  brief  whispers  as 
the  poor  woman  who  was  the  object  of  it  passed  by. 
Yet,  though  convinced  of  her  innocence,  her  neigh- 
bors do  not  dare  take  up  her  cause,  for  fear  of  bring- 
ing on  their  own  heads  what  has  fallen  on  her. 

A  son  of  a  well-to-do  oil  and  wine  merchant  in  a 
certain  village  was  a  patron  of  the  priest  in  charge  at 
the  principal  church  of  the  town.  He  was  in  love 
with  the  daughter  of  the  man  who  sold  the  salt  and 
tobacco  for  the  government.  She  refused  his  atten- 
tions, and,  though  there  had  never  been  a  whisper 
of  blame  against  her,  one  Sunday  she  found  that 
the  priest  had  directed  against  her  the  power  of  the 
Church.  She  bravely  faced  the  conditions,  stepped 
quietly  into  her  new  status  in  village  life,  and  since 
then  has  been  living  such  a  life  of  self-sacrifice  and  no- 
bility that  her  very  deeds  have  daily  given  the  lie  to 
the  charge  against  her.  Since  then  the  son  of  the  oil 
merchant  has  ruined  his  father  and  fled  to  Australia, 
and  the  priest  died  a  miserable  death  in  a  torrente  into 
which  he  stumbled  while  drunk;  but  to  her  is  for  ever 
denied  everything  most  dear  to  a  woman. 

Not  so  with  many  other  women  who  come  under 
the  ban:  though  equally  innocent,  though  victims  of 
spite,  of  distorted  circumstances,  they  fail  to  support 
the  blow  and  do  become  abandoned.  The  natural 
current  is  toward  the  cities,  where  they  may  hide 
from  all  who  ever  knew  them  in  the  village. 


IN   THE   ROMAN   ZONE        69 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  this  system  has  been 
going  on  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  for  centuries,  and 
it  has  forced  the  natural  attitude  of  the  fathers,  hus- 
bands, and  brothers  of  the  women  into  one  of  the 
utmost  watchfulness  and  jealousy.  I  have  often  heard 
philanthropically  inclined  Americans  who  went  into 
the  Italian  quarters  seeking  to  do  good,  complain  that 
the  men  were  exceedingly  averse  to  allowing  their 
wives  or  daughters  to  meet  strangers,  or  to  have  any 
of  the  usual  liberties  of  American  women.  This 
jealousy  is  traditional,  and  is  the  result  of  the  system 
outlined  above. 

Another  point  on  which  this  system  may  have  some 
bearing  is  the  devotion  of  the  Italian  women  to  the 
Church  compared  with  the  indifference  of  the  men. 
In  most  civilized  countries  the  women  are  more  in- 
clined to  be  religious  than  the  men,  but  in  Italy  this 
is  accentuated,  and  the  separation  is  growing,  as  the 
skepticism  to  which  I  have  referred  spreads. 

All  over  southern  Italy  one  hears  a  bitter  reference  to 
the  decime,  the  one-tenth  of  a  man's  money  which 
is  claimed  by  the  Church  each  year;  and  though  this 
often  works  out  as  not  a  literal  allotment  of  one- 
tenth,  there  are  many  parishes,  where  the  principal 
priests  are  keen  business  men,  that  more  than  one- 
tenth  is  extracted,  and  the  tithes  take  form  in  labor, 
vegetables,  wine,  fruit,  fees,  etc.,  but  are  nevertheless 
valuable. 

It  is  not  a  matter  of  economics  and  does  not  pertain 
to  this  consideration,  if  the  peasantry  of  southern 
Italy  are  such  good  Christians  as  to  give  to  the  use  of 
God  one-tenth  of  their  all;  but  it  certainly  comes 
within  the  scope  of  this  study  when  that  enormous 
fund  goes  to  support  that  portion  of  the  priesthood 


70      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

which  is  unworthy  and  is  nothing  but  an  army  of 
hypocritical  parasites. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  conditions  in  and  about 
Rome,  the  vagabondi  should  be  mentioned.  As  I  have 
said,  the  government  considers  no  man  a  pauper  so 
long  as  he  is  able  to  beg,  and  the  tourist  centres 
have  gradually  drawn  a  great  collection  of  professional 
beggars,  who  are  really  artistic  in  their  methods  of  ap- 
peal. They  are  not  satisfied,  as  is  the  beggar  of 
Naples,  with  a  crust  of  bread,  a  sip  of  wine,  and  a 
stone  treasuring  sun-warmth  on  which  to  stretch  at 
night,  but  go  in  for  better  things.  At  all  the  points  of 
interest  in  the  way  of  ruins  and  the  like,  which  lie  in 
the  Roman  zone,  their  representatives  will  be  found. 
The  liberality  and  apparent  great  wealth  of  the 
American  tourists  have  inspired  many  of  these  to  save 
enough  to  emigrate  to  America,  but  they  have  found 
begging  a  very  poor  occupation  here,  and  in  several 
instances  of  which  I  have  heard  have  gone  to  work 
and  are  prospering. 

In  many  districts  where  there  are  clay  banks,  sand 
banks,  and  other  spots  where  earth  materials  have  been 
extracted  for  building  or  plastic  art  work,  the  extrac- 
tion has  been  done  as  if  cutting  out  arched  caves,  and 
in  these  and  in  the  arches  of  ruins,  with  boarded-up  or 
plastered-up  fronts,  thousands  of  poor  families  live, 
making  their  living  by  digging  in  the  pits,  acting  as 
guides  about  the  ruins,  begging,  or  working  on  the 
land  as  hired  laborers. 


'."■ :raK 


CHAPTER  VI 

IN  THE  HEEL  AND  TOE  OF  THE  BOOT 

IT  is  a  very  nearly  safe  prophecy  to  say  that  the 
heel  of  the  Italian  Boot,  or  rather  southern  Molise 
and  Apulia,  shall  yet  pour  forth  the  greatest 
flood  of  southern  Italian  emigrants  bound  for  America 
which  has  yet  been  witnessed  in  the  varying  exodus 
from  southern  Europe.  There  have  been  times  when  it 
seemed  as  if  these  provinces  were  about  to  rise  and 
distance  Campania  and  Sicily,  whose  flow  has  gen- 
erally been  the  largest;  but  the  great  mass  of  the 
peasantry  of  the  Apulian  plain  has  not  yet  started 
toward  America,  and  will  not  until  the  status  of  the 
Italian  emigrant  in  America  becomes  similar  to  that  of 
the  Irish  in  1878-79,  a  quantity  respected  and  duly 
reckoned  with,  or  until  the  steamship  companies 
make  Bari,  Brindisi,  or  Taranto  ports  of  direct  depar- 
ture for  the  United  States. 

As  remarked  previously,  the  fluctuations  of  the  vol- 
ume of  emigration,  as  viewed  in  retrospect  and 
from  this  side  of  the  water,  are  hardly  understood, 
though  a  social  crisis  in  Russia  always  produces  an  out- 
pouring of  the  Jews,  good  crops  in  the  Northwest  an 
increase  in  Scandinavians,  and  a  period  of  strikes  in 
the  United  States  an  augmented  Polish  immigration. 
The  figures  for  the  past  twelve  years,  taken  from  June 
till  June,  compared  with  the  relative  wage  rate,  are 
interesting: 


72      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 


Year 

Immigrants  Arrived 

Average  Daily  Wage 
in  U.  S. 

1891 

489,407 

$1.00. 

1892 

579,663 

1.00.30 

1893 

439,73° 

•99-32 

1894 

285,631 

.98.06 

1895 

258,536 

.97-88 

1896 

343,267 

•97-93 

1897 

230,832 

.98.96 

1898 

229,299 

.98.79 

1899 

3H>7I5 

1 .01.54 

1900 

448,572 

1-03-43 

1901 

487,918 

1.05.62 

1902 

648,743 

1.04.93 

1903 

857,046 

1.03.89 

It  will  appear  that  there  are  other  and  less  understood 
influences  at  work,  to  cause  the  swelling  or  diminish- 
ing of  the  flood  of  immigrants,  than  the  wage  rate  in 
the  country.  In  a  previous  chapter  I  have  noted  the 
bearing  of  the  prospect  of  more  stringent  immigrant 
legislation  on  the  flood  of  1903,  and  in  the  section  of 
the  country  now  under  discussion  we  found  abundant 
evidences  of  the  effects  of  the  news  spread  far  and 
wide  that  people  who  did  not  get  into  the  United 
States  soon  would  find  it  more  difficult  than  ever  to 
get  in. 

Many,  many  families  on  the  Apulian  plain,  who  had 
been  doing  very  well  so  far,  were  preparing  to  depart 
for  the  United  States  just  as  soon  as  the  harvest  season 
was  over.  They  had  been  intending  to  go  to  the 
United  States  for  some  years,  but  had  put  it  off,  fear-; 
ing  to  disturb  a  condition  that  was  well  enough,  but 
nevertheless  being  fully  decided,  sooner  or  later,  to  go 
to  the  United  States.  The  prospect  of  a  law  excluding 
illiterates  precipitated  them.     Many  of  these  same  fam- 


Threshing;  Beans 


IN   THE   HEEL   AND   TOE      73 

ilies  are  already  in  this  country,  having  left  their  homes 
since  we  visited  them. 

There  is  something  that  is  insistently  Greek  about 
the  people  of  the  Heel,  and  they  more  nearly  approach 
the  Oriental  than  any  others  of  the  Italian  provincials. 
I  do  not  think  they  have  quite  the  passionate  natures 
of  the  Sicilians  or  the  ruggedness  of  the  mountain 
Calabrese,  nor  are  they  as  energetic  as  their  fleas,  which 
are  certainly  the  liveliest  I  have  ever  encountered. 

To  the  casual  observer  they  seem  to  be  lazy,  and 
their  habitations  present  a  certain  neglected  appearance 
that  is  strongly  contrasted  with  those  houses  in  each 
town  which  have  been  rehabilitated  with  money  sent 
home  from  America.  But  the  people  are  not  lazy. 
They  are  merely  bound  by  traditional  methods  of 
doing  things,  and  by  an  unconquerable  sub-malarial 
condition.  In  many  spots  one  will  see  large  planta- 
tions of  Eucalyptus  globulus  planted  to  counteract 
malaria. 

There  is  an  odd  theory,  of  interest  only  because  of 
its  oddity,  that  the  famous  Apulian  fevers  are  the  re- 
sults of  the  dissolution  of  the  numbers  of  men  fallen  in 
battles  which  have  taken  place  on  Apulian  soil.  A 
little  computation  and  historical  reference  shows  mil- 
lions of  men  to  have  fallen  in  the  Heel,  and  when  the 
armies  of  the  Crusaders  camped  about  Brindisi  they 
were  nearly  wiped  out  by  death  from  sickness.  Ever 
since  that  time  fevers  have  prevailed,  and  there  are 
some  spots  that  are  certain  death  to  any  foreigner 
should  he  sleep  there  over  night. 

Large  quantities  of  cotton  are  grown  in  this  region, 
and  when  one  is  travelling  south  it  will  be  noticed  that 
shortly  after  the  groves  of  hazelnuts,  beeches,  and 
chestnuts  cease,  the  first  plantations  of  cotton  wiil  be- 


74      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

gin  to  appear.  The  plain  of  Cannae  roughly  marks  the 
limit  of  the  cotton  country.  Around  the  Gulf  of  Ta- 
ranto  there  will  be  seen  large  fields  of  cotton  and  saffron, 
and  though  the  country  is  very  fertile  and  densely 
populated,  the  agricultural  system  is  very  bad,  and  the 
ground  inefficiently  cultivated  merely  because  it  is  a 
centuries-old  custom  to  let  the  ground  lie  fallow  for 
two  years  after  each  crop. 

Olive  orchards  flourish,  and  nearly  every  consider- 
able town  is  a  centre  of  salad-oil  manufacture.  Or- 
anges are  grown  in  abundance,  but  cannot  compete 
with  the  Sicilian  for  export.  The  Apulian  wine  is  very 
fine,  being  much  softer  than  the  Sicilian,  yet  not  as 
popular  as  the  wines  of  Capri  and  the  Vesuvius  region. 

About  Cotrone  the  finest  licorice  in  the  world  is 
produced,  and  in  many  spots  there  will  be  seen  clusters 
of  date  palms,  though  the  fruit  does  not  mature  as 
fully  as  it  should. 

Much  of  the  wood  required  for  artificial  purposes  in 
southern  Italy  comes  from  western  Apulia,  Potenza  and 
Calabria.  Fine  oaks,  beeches,  chestnuts,  etc.,  grown 
on  the  mountains,  and  the  Sila  chain,  whose  highest 
peak  is  snow-covered,  are  well  clad  with  pines  which 
afford  what  the  Italian  carpenter  calls  legno  bianco 
(white  wood). 

Aside  from  agriculture,  some  of  the  few  industries 
are  wood-cutting,  taxed  unbearably  by  the  govern- 
ment, sulphur-mining  at  Eboli,  salt-mining  about  Lun- 
gro,  honey-producing  about  Taranto,  fish-catching 
and  exporting  from  the  same  town,  velvet  and  silk  pro- 
ducing in  and  about  Catanzaro,  and  sheep  and  goat 
herding  in  the  Sila  chain.  The  agricultural  products  are 
the  mainstay  of  the  people,  who  are  so  densely  packed 
in  some  communities  that  if  it  were  not  for  the  Cactus 


IN   THE   HEEL   AND   TOE      75 

opuntia,  which  is  grown  in  hedges  in  place  of  fences, 
there  would  be  scarcely  enough  to  eat. 

The  town  of  Taranto,  which  is  built  on  a  rock  cut 
off  from  the  land  by  a  239-feet-wide  canal,  which  will 
allow  the  passage  of  any  battle-ship  in  the  Italian  navy, 
is  possibly  the  most  densely  inhabited  spot  on  the  earth. 
Sixty  thousand  people  live  there  in  a  space  so  small 
that  New  York's  most  thickly  populated  tenement  dis- 
tricts do  not  compare  with  it.  An  odd  thing  is  notice- 
able in  this  town,  especially  among  the  fishermen  of 
the  Mare  Piccolo.  The  Italian  is  generously  tinctured 
with  Greek,  and  among  the  totally  illiterate  the  jargon 
is  absolutely  unintelligible  to  an  outsider. 

Around  the  Heel  nearly  all  the  settlements  are  well 
back  from  the  coast,  and  strange  to  say  the  reason  is, 
not  that  it  is  healthier  or  more  convenient,  but  that  in 
the  Middle  Ages  they  were  established  there  because  it 
was  not  safe  to  live  alongshore.  Since  then  no  one 
has  thought  of  changing;  in  fact  the  entire  region,  ex- 
cept as  it  has  been  stirred  by  the  letters  of  emigrants 
and  the  doctrines  of  Socialists  and  Anarchists,  seems  to 
live  by  the  precept,   "  What  is,  is  best." 

Something  of  the  deep  establishment  of  customs  and 
of  the  religious  state  of  the  country  can  be  gathered 
from  the  following.  In  Bari  there  is  the  Church  of  San 
Nicola,  than  whom  there  is  no  more  revered  saint  in  all 
Italia  Meridionale,  wherefore  note  the  number  of  Nicolas. 
In  the  crypt  his  remains  are  supposed  to  be  encased  in 
a  tomb  from  which  exudes  on  and  about  the  8th  of 
May  an  oily  substance  that  is  miraculous.  Pilgrims 
come  for  the  feast  of  the  8th  of  May  by  thousands  and 
thousands,  and  nearly  all  of  them  are  in  the  costume  of 
the  remoter  villages.  On  the  promontory  at  Cotrone 
stands  a  pillar  which  marks  the  site  of  the  temple  of 


76      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

Hera,  once  the  goddess  of  all  the  peoples  about  the 
Gulf  of  Taranto,  but  now  it  has  for  a  neighbor  the 
Church  of  the  Madonna  del  Capo,  and  each  Saturday 
young  girls  from  the  region  about  go  in.  procession  to 
the  church  in  their  bare  feet,  all  clad  in  white. 

The  people  in  many  of  the  towns  are  primitive,  es- 
pecially in  the  Basilicatan  Mountains,  where  strangers 
are  often  as  unwelcome  as  they  are  to-day  among  the 
mountaineers  of  East  Tennessee.  Some  few  families 
control  nearly  all  the  tillable  land,  and  exact  from  the 
poor  peasants  one-half  of  all  they  produce  on  it  for 
rent.  To  the  American  farmer  who  has  been  long  ac- 
customed to  raising  a  crop  on  shares,  that  does  not 
sound  very  bad,  but  the  latifondo,  as  this  system  is 
called,  is  one  of  the  curses  of  Italia  Meridionale  to-day, 
and  in  that  portion  of  this  narrative  which  deals  with 
our  studies  in  Sicily,  where  the  same  condition  prevails 
as  in  Apulia,  Basilicata,  and  Calabria,  I  shall  give  more 
definite  expression  on  the  system.  One  of  the  very 
powerful  families  in  this  region  is  the  Baracco  family, 
and  they  literally  hold  in  their  hands  the  fate  of  a  vast 
region. 

Not  only  is  the  country  very  primitive  in  spots,  but 
in  some  it  is  exceedingly  wild.  About  Mount  Vulture, 
and  especially  in  the  great  half-destroyed  lateral  crater, 
the  forests  are  so  dense  as  to  be  almost  impenetrable, 
and  wolves  and  wild  boars  are  numerous. 

Leaving  entirely  the  consideration  of  the  regions  of 
the  Heel,  and  speaking  only  of  Basilicata  and  Calabria, 
which  have  been  pouring  emigrants  into  the  United 
States,  there  should  be  mentioned  the  great  enemy  of 
the  peasant,  which  has  driven  more  men  to  America 
than  any  other  thing,  the  terrible  torrente. 

It  is  merely  a  mountain  stream,  totally  dry  in  the 


IN   THE   HEEL   AND   TOE      77 

summer  time,  as  what  little  water  might  course  down 
it  is  carried  along  in  clay-lined  irrigating  ditches,  and 
distributed  along  the  face  of  the  hills  sometimes  hun- 
dreds of  feet  above  the  level  of  the  river  bed,  so. clev- 
erly are  some  of  the  canals  constructed.  But,  in  the 
rainy  season,  when  enormous  quantities  of  water  are 
precipitated  every  day  on  the  mountain  sides,  the  tor- 
rente  becomes  a  devilish  agent  of  destruction,  and  its 
waters  devastate  whole  communes  in  a  few  hours. 

These  districts  have  struggled  to  wall  in  with 
masonry  and  concrete  the  whole  course  of  the  stream, 
and  to  clear  the  bed  of  all  obstructions  which  would 
prevent  the  current  having  a  straight,  easy  plunge  to 
the  sea,  but  the  water  is  perverse,  and  it  is  not  unusual 
for  the  best-curbed  torrentes  to  rip  out  their  walls  and 
ruin  in  a  night  the  labor  of  twenty  years.  Taxes  and 
volunteer  labor  to  repair  communal  works,  and  ex- 
penditures and  labors  to  patch  up  private  estates,  have 
so  impoverished  the  people  that  in  many  places  they 
have  been  forced  to  abandon,  not  only  any  attempt  to 
curb  the  torrente,  but  to  maintain  any  department  of 
the  communal  government  that  costs  as  much  as  a 
penny.  The  general  taxes  went  unpaid,  and  when  the 
government  forced  sales  of  houses  and  gardens,  the 
people  simply  abandoned  their  places  and  became 
wanderers  or  emigrated  to  America.  At  the  present 
time  nearly  all  of  the  villages  are  in  a  condition  that  is 
much  improved.  Money  sent  home  from  America  is 
doing  it.  But  the  torrentes  are  just  as  bad  as  ever,  and 
so  long  as  they  keep  the  people  impoverished  there  will 
be  no  money  to  pay  for  the  maintenance  of  schools. 

Sicily  has  a  slight  advantage  in  the  formation  of  the 
country,  but  there  the  torrente  is  still  the  object  of 
constant  vigilance  and  does  much  damage.      People 


78      IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

of  intelligence  are  fully  aroused  to  conditions  in  Italia 
Meridionale,  and  a  very  excellent  expression  of  the 
provincial  attitude  was  given  in  an  article  by  Signor 
Enzo  Saffiotti,  which  appeared  in  the  Ga^etta  di  Mes- 
sina delta  Calabrie  on  the  15th  of  September,  1903. 
It  is  given  below : 


The  Southern  Question  Confronts  the  Country. 

Congressional  resolutions  and  government  promises.  The 
burden  on  the  Southern  press.  Great  discontent  among  the 
people.  Resume  of  the  past  thirty  years  of  conditions. 
Riots  in  1893.  Agrarian  and  mining  crises.  The  Church's 
tenths,  the  great  landed  estates  renting  system  and  the 
confiscated  demesnial  properties.  Heavy  usuries  and  peas- 
ants' land  contracts.  Economic-social  revival.  Appeal  to 
Southern  deputies.     Restoration's  era. 

We  must  not  grow  weary  of  repeating  it! 

One  of  the  most  urgent  and  yet  most  difficult  prob- 
lems which  the  government  and  parliament  have  been 
called  upon  and  are  obliged  and  bound  promptly  to 
solve  in  the  present  course  of  our  national  life  is  the 
question  of  the  condition  of  southern  Italy.  In  order 
that  such  a  mighty  and  intricate  matter  may  be  prop- 
erly adjusted,  verily  must  it  be  known  to  its  every 
limit  and  studied  through  its  every  cause. 

It  is  the  task  of  the  press,  and  particularly  of  the 
Southern  press,  to  associate  its  endeavors  with  noble 
and  unselfish  intention,  to  direct  with  exactitude  the 
current  of  public  sentiment  in  the  country,  so  that  it 
shall  force  the  government  to  efficacious  measures  and 
precautions.  These  may  be  obtained  through  some 
financial  sacrifice  and  reduction  of  useless  expenditures 
in  the  state  budgets. 

The  state  cannot  entrench  itself  behind  financial 
difficulties  when  a  question  that  is  not  regional  arises, 
for  there  are  those  to  devise  ways  out  of  the  difficulty. 

The  deficit  of  many  millions  could  in  no  manner 
continue  to  enfeeble  the  state  budget  if  a  preference 


IN   THE  HEEL  AND  TOE      79 

were  given  to  the  productive  works,  and  the  national 
economic  conditions  would  certainly  be  revived. 

In  parliamentary  sessions,  debates  on  the  Southern 
question  have  at  all  times  been  closed  with  vague  votes 
and  presidential  assurances,  the  latter  filled  with  so 
many  pretty  promises  for  the  improvement  of  these 
our  generous  and  forgotten  regions. 

They  are  promises  which  will  doubtless  continue  to 
remain  unfulfilled,  just  as  the  preceding  mass  of  as- 
surances delivered  by  administrations,  leaders,  and 
ministers.  Meantime  the  South  is  waiting  and  will 
continue  to  wait  for  those  prompt  reforms  and  vigor- 
ous measures  which  would  assist  greatly  in  raising  the 
economic  status,  and  for  the  future  disclose  a  horizon 
bright  and  clear.  It  is  anxious  to  be  lifted  from  that 
condition  of  humbled  inferiority  into  which  the  guilty 
carelessness  of  its  rulers  have  thrust  it. 

Just  a  little  has  been  done,  comparatively  nothing, 
directly  to  the  advantage  of  our  population,  harassed 
as  it  has  been  by  the  different  forms  of  commercial 
and  industrial  crises  and  vexed  with  all  kinds  of  local 
and  fiscal  taxes,  yet  they  ever  know  how  to  keep  high 
and  unchanging  the  unitarian  sentiment  of  the  nation. 

The  cause  of  recurrent  convulsions  of  agitation 
among  the  working  class  and  the  slender  middle  class 
is  not  entirely  to  be  attributed  to  the  propagation  of 
socialistic  doctrines,  as  the  government  is  so  ready  to 
explain  it.  It  is  all  a  leaven  of  discontent  working 
within  the  population,  a  realization  of  the  isolation  in 
which  they  are  left,  of  the  deprivation  of  the  rightful 
help  and  support  from  the  government  which  with 
provident  laws  and  measures  should  defend  their  in- 
terests, and  further  encourage  and  protect  their  indus- 
trial undertakings. 

The  various  ministers,  during  the  last  thirty  years  of 
Italian  political  life,  have  done  nothing  that  was  re- 
markable for  these  Southern  regions,  whose  economic 
conditions,  though  troublesome  in  the  beginning,  have 
gradually  grown  worse. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  recurrence  of  those  social 
phenomena  have  given  people  at  a  distance  who  were 


80      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

inclined  to  turn  their  observation  and  consideration  on 
our  affairs,  a  different  impression  from  that  which 
would  be  gathered  if  the  inward  causes  were  other- 
wise studied,  and  this  attests  in  a  very  considerable 
way  the  moral  sentiment  of  our  people,  who,  though 
of  great  sensitiveness  and  resentful  of  wrong,  quietly 
sustain  the  additional  adversity  of  being  misunder- 
stood, even  when  instinctively  rebellious  to  all  forms 
of  oppressive  authority. 

On  the  day  after  the  conflict  in  1893,  when  the  ad- 
ministration of  that  day  set  on  foot  measures  to  favor 
the  Southern  provinces,  which  should  eventually  al- 
leviate the  severe  hardships  of  our  condition,  the 
universal  discontent  began  to  disappear  rapidly. 

The  resumption  of  quiet  was  not  the  result  of  the 
presence  of  bayonets  and  the  pronouncing  of  exem- 
plary sentences  from  temporary  tribunals,  for  our 
people  fear  neither,  but  came  about  through  the 
administration's  pledging  itself  to  help  the  population 
and  hurriedly  presenting  to  parliament  new  and  old 
schemes  for  relief.  Owing  to  political  changes,  these 
remained  merely  in  their  former  status,  that  of 
schemes.  Our  people,  mindful  of  the  past,  realize  in 
the  new  promises  of  the  government  nothing  but  a 
quantity  of  pious  lies,  destined  to  deceive  of  satisfy, 
if  for  no  other  reason,  with  their  beautiful  sound  and 
appearance.  So  pretences  and  claims  on  behalf  of 
these  promises  are  merely  like  bad  drafts  of  short 
date,  and  even  had  the  government  fulfilled  them  it 
would  not  have  been  generosity,  but  apportioned  jus- 
tice. 

The  hardships  of  southern  Italy — those  of  Sicily  are 
common  with  those  of  the  other  regions — are  of  an 
economical  nature,  and  arise  from  complex  causes,  in 
which  are  competing  factors,  but  antique  and  recent, 
permanent  and  transitory,  and  thus  inducing  excessive 
taxes  divided  unjustly,  agrarian  and  mining'  crises, 
lack  of  needed  public  works,  not  of  merely  electoral 
nature,  but  of  a  most  necessary  sort,  the  insufficience 
of  roads  to  connect  districts,  and  the  disproportionate 
rates  of  the  railroads  for  freight  and  transportation. 


IN    THE   HEEL   AND    TOE      81 

The  first  step  toward  a  gradual  reduction  of  these 
oppressive  tariffs,  after  so  many  years  in  which  there 
has  been  so  much  complaint,  has  at  least  been  achieved 
in  a  very  cautious  way  by  the  first  ordinance  of 
Minister  Palenzo,  which  went  into  effect  with  good 
results  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  month.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  our  legislators  will  uphold  it  with  ad- 
ditional and  greater  reductions. 

There  still  remain  unsolved  some  other  notable 
questions,  among  which  are  the  annual  tithes  of  one- 
tenth  taken  by  the  Church,  the  system  of  renting 
piecemeal  large  properties  on  oppressive  leases  to  the 
peasants,  and  others,  all  waiting  these  many  years  to  be 
adjusted  and  regulated  by  a  wise  legislation.  Also  from 
the  distribution  and  opening  up  for  cultivation  of  the 
great  demesnial  estates  (Church  property  confiscated 
by  the  governments  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago),  Sicily 
and  the  other  southern  provinces  could  extract  great 
benefit  and  profit. 

The  provincial  evils  will  increase  gradually,  but 
powerfully,  if  radical  reforms  are  not  introduced  and 
carried  out  in  the  matter  of  the  existing  agrarian 
regime,  in  which  pauper  peasants,  on  account  of  their 
miserable  condition,  are  making  themselves  greater 
burden-bearers  under  onerous  and  usurious  contracts, 
thus  prostituting  their  industry  to  usury  and  impeding 
all  agricultural  progress. 

Meanwhile  the  population  is  increasing  so  rapidly 
that  the  products  of  the  soil  are  become  insufficient 
for  their  very  necessities.  Prompt  aid  to  agriculture, 
which  is  the  important  resource  of  southern  Italy,  is 
needed  if  the  Meridionale  population  hope  to  derive  any 
increase  in  benefit  or  profit.  Only  with  a  readjustment 
of  the  agricultural  regime  and  the  leasing  of  country 
properties  may  we  hope  for  a  true  and  healthy  social 
revival.  With  the  renewal  of  parliamentary  pro- 
cedures it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  government  will 
seriously  undertake  the  Southern  Italian  question. 

Our  deputations — they  who  should  be  examples  of 
harmony  and  tenacity — instead  of  being  objects  of 
daily  criticism,  should  join  compactly  together,  with- 


82      IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

out  making  disrupting  questions  of  party,  race,  or 

fiolitical  gradation,  and  demand  and  obtain  those  re- 
orms  waited  for  so  long. 

They  should  have  a  sole  intention,  a  single  aim :  to 
redeem  the  provinces  of  southern  Italy  from  the  straits 
in  which  they  lie  so  cruelly  oppressed.  Returning  to 
Montecitorio's  halls  they  should  not  evade  their  princi- 
pal duty.  Discussions  about  this  matter  there  have 
)een  in  plenty,  until  now  we  demand  action;  on 
)ehalf  of  the  dignity  and  prestige  of  the  entire 
nation,  the  solution  of  the  Southern  Italian  problem  is 
clearly  imposed  upon  them.  The  legislative  body  has 
already  announced  its  position  of  being  willing,  and 
facing  its  promises  it  cannot  honorably  fail. 

After  so  many  depreciations  too  often  inspired  by 
misconceptions,  after  so  many  accusations,  discredits, 
and  imputations  treacherously  cast  on  our  patriotic 
population,  there  might  come  suddenly  an  era  of 
reparation — it  might  come  at  once! 

The  South  is  waiting  1 

Enzo  Safiottl 

This,  though  comprehensive  and  with  more  than 
one  carefully  veiled  threat  in  the  lines,  is  only  one  of 
the  many  strong  articles  appearing  in  the  southern 
papers,  and  it  is  among  the  mildest.  When  the  situ- 
ation is  reviewed,  I  believe  it  not  ill  considered  to  say 
that  Italy  owes  her  immunity  from  a  great  rebellion  in 
the  south  to  the  relief  afforded  by  emigration  and 
emigrant  savings. 


....  •■        ii  »■  * 


Scilla — Draught-oxen  of  Italy 


CHAPTER  VII 

GUALTIERI-SICAMINO   AND   THE  SQUADRITO  FAMILY 

IT  was  a  rare  morning  when  we  got  out  of  our  ill- 
smelling  second-class  compartment  at  Reggio 
di  Calabrie,  and  strolled  down  in  the  bright  sun- 
light to  the  steamer  lying  at  the  makeshift  dock  ready 
to  ferry  passengers  over  to  Messina. 

We  were  bound  at  last  for  the  mountain  village  of 
Gualtieri-Sicamino,  where  lived  Antonio  Squadrito's 
family,  and  as  we  contemplated  the  island  across  the 
straits  it  seemed  that  they  must  live  in  a  very  Elysium 
indeed. 

A  cool  wind  swept  down  from  the  north,  barely 
ruffling  the  wonderfully  colored  water  of  the  six-mile- 
wide  channel;  English  colliers  were  ploughing  up 
"light"  from  the  south;  scores  of  boats  fishing  for 
sardines  were  in  sight;  directly  opposite  was  Messina, 
with  its  sickle-shaped  arm  that  protects  its  harbor; 
and  against  the  abrupt  purple  hills  the  creamy  white 
houses  of  the  town  piled  themselves  up  for  more  than 
a  hundred  feet  in  places.  In  the  grand  distance  to  the 
south  lay  the  huge  shape  of  Mount  /Etna,  the  crater 
appearing  like  a  bite  out  of  the  skyline. 

As  the  steamer  neared  the  shore,  we  could  see  that 
to  the  south  of  the  city  extended  miles  of  fruit 
orchards  very  thickly  set,  and  to  the  north  an  excel- 
lent road  ran  out  to  the  Point  of  Faro,  where  rose  the 
light  that  marks  the  entrance  to  the  Straits  of  Messina. 

As  we  entered  the  harbor,  steaming  in  close  by  the 


84      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

forts,  and  so  near  to  the  water-front  street  that  we 
could  read  the  shop  signs,  we  were  interested  to  ob- 
serve a  large  steamer  lying  at  anchor  taking  on 
emigrants,  who  were  being  brought  from  the  quay  in 
rowboat  loads.  We  could  see  a  large  group  in  and 
about  the  offices  of  the  La  Veloce  Line,  and  every- 
where along  the  water  front  great  posters  announcing 
the  departures  of  emigrant  ships,  for  the  United  States 
for  the  most  part,  though  some  were  for  Australia  and 
some  for  South  America.  Those  for  Australia  were  the 
ships  that  sail  from  Brindisi  and  have  their  principal 
patronage  from  the  Adriatic  coast  villages. 

The  posters  were  the  same,  and  the  general  character 
of  emigrant-departure  bustle  the  same,  that  we  had 
seen  in  the  Boot,  but  over  Messina  there  seemed  to  be 
a  spell  of  greater  prosperity  and  activity  than  over  any 
of  the  other  southern  Italian  towns.  The  streets  were 
strikingly  clean.  The  people  walked  almost  as  rapidly 
as  Americans.  The  pretentiousness  of  Naples  and 
Rome  was  missing.  Business  houses  seemed  to  be 
built  and  used  for  business  houses  only.  On  the 
water  front  three  American  emblems  were  visible, — 
one  over  the  door  of  the  consulate  where  I  knew  Mr. 
Charles  M.  Caughey  of  Baltimore  to  preside,  and  the 
other  two  over  wide-open  doors  decorated  with  huge 
white  signs  "  American  Bar." 

I  learned  later  that  the  two  wine-shops  where  they 
really  can  set  out  a  good  dry  cocktail  and  a  standard 
gin  rickey  are  owned,  one  by  a  father  and  the  other 
by  his  son.  The  father  emigrated  to  New  York  about 
the  time  of  the  Civil  War,  and  according  to  reports 
boasts  of  having  jumped  the  bounty  three  times,  and 
amassed  a  fortune  in  the  saloon  business  in  New  York. 
The  son  is  also  keeping  bar,  because  it  is  the  only 


GUALTIERI-SICAMINO       85 

thing  he  knows  how  to  do,  and  is  waiting  for  his 
father  to  die,  when  1  fancy  there  will  be  one  less 
American  flag  on  the  water  front  of  Messina.  Both 
father  and  son  are  American  citizens,  and  are  much  in 
demand  with  the  emigrants;  and  from  all  I  could 
gather  they  and  their  operations  could  be  very  well 
dispensed  with. 

We  stopped  in  Messina  only  long  enough  to  get 
fed,  freshened,  and  in  some  small  degree  rehabilitated, 
and  then  took  train  for  Gualtieri-Sicamino,  intending 
to  use  that  place  as  a  base  of  observations  in  Sicily. 

Having  heard  from  Italians  of  the  north  that  the  peo- 
ple of  southern  Italy  were  for  the  most  part  low- 
browed swine,  and  having  found  the  people  in  the 
Boot  to  be  decent,  kind-hearted  and  hard-working, 
though  ignorant  and  poor,  we  were  prepared  to  doubt 
the  Sicilians  to  be  the  bloodthirsty,  stiletto-using  ban- 
ditti, such  as  they  are  popularly  supposed  to  typify. 
It  was  a  real  gratification  to  find  the  first  representa- 
tives we  met  to  be  of  a  thoroughly  desirable  type  con- 
sidered from  the  standpoint  of  good  raw  material  for 
a  great  growing  nation. 

Nor  did  we  have  occasion  thereafter  to  change  our 
first  estimates. 

As  our  train  roared  through  the  tunnels  and  toiled 
around  the  bold  faces  of  the  mountains  the  greater 
portion  of  that  mid-afternoon,  we  were  talking  anx- 
iously of  what  Gualtieri  must  be  like,  for  it  was  set 
down  in  the  books  as  a  town  of  5,000  people,  and  we 
feared  that  it  would  be  much  too  large  a  community 
to  yield  the  typical  country  family  such  as  we  had 
found  made  up  the  great  mass  of  Italian  emigrants. 
Soon  we  left  the  heights  and  the  narrow  defiles,  and 
came  down  to  the  sea  in  plain  view  of  the  island  vol- 


86      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

cano  Stromboli,  belching  great  volumes  of  vapor  into 
the  azure  dome,  and  finally  pulled  up  at  Santa  Lucia, 
bracketed  in  the  time-table  as  the  station  of  the  town 
of  Gualtieri.  When  we  stepped  out  of  the  compart- 
ment the  only  building  near  at  hand  was  the  square, 
squat,  stuccoed  station,  while  a  few  houses  straggled 
away  in  the  distance.  We  were  for  climbing  aboard 
again,  but  the  guards  were  calling  "  Santa  Lucia- 
Gualtieri-Sicamino,  Pagia,  San  Filippo,"  and  even  as 
we  hesitated  the  capo  blew  his  horn  and  the  train 
crawled  away  towards  Milazzo,  in  view  on  the  far 
blue  cape,  and  left  us  standing  there. 

To  the  north  was  the  blue-green  sea  close  at  hand, 
to  the  east  and  west  the  bold  knees  of  the  mountains 
coming  out  to  the  water  line,  to  the  south  the  hills 
piled  one  on  another,  broken  by  twisting  valleys.  In 
the  late  afternoon  sunlight,  falling  athwart  the  inland 
slopes,  I  could  see  how  they  were  terraced  like  gardens 
in  order  to  allow  them  to  be  cultivated  and  the  ter- 
races ran  up  to  great  heights.  Certainly  there  was 
nothing  about  us  to  make  us  think  we  had  come  to  a 
too  city-like  community  for  our  experiment.  Many, 
many  miles  away  on  heights  we  could  see  some  white 
houses  in  clustering  villages,  but  if  there  was  a  town 
of  five  thousand  people  lying  about  somewhere  it  was 
rather  artfully  concealed. 

As  I  surrendered  our  tickets  to  the  capo  di  sia^ione 
1  said:  — 

"  Is  this  the  station  for  Gualtieri-Sicamino  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"Well,  where  is  the  town  ?" 

"  You  go  along  this  road." 

He  pointed  to  a  narrow  wagon  road  running  along 
the  tracks  for  a  short  distance,  then  winding  into  the 


GUALTIERI-SICAMINO       87 

heart  of  the  hills.  It  was  two  inches  deep  with  dust, 
and  the  sun  beat  down  on  it  with  great  fervor.  In 
addition  to  our  being  encumbered  with  the  heavy 
camera,  and  one  carefully  packed  valise,  I  realized  that 
it  was  about  1  io°  Fahrenheit  on  that  bit  of  the  king's 
highway. 

"  How  far  is  it  to  the  town  ?  " 

"  Eleven  kilometers,  sir."     (Seven  miles  and  more!) 

"I — I — suppose  I  can  hire  a  carriage  hereabouts," 
I  said, — a  little  faintly,  I  fear. 

"  No,  there  is  no  cart  around  here  now." 

"  How  about  a  donkey  or  two  ?  " 

The  station-master  swept  the  surrounding  country 
with  hand-shaded  eyes  and  shook  his  head  depre- 
catingly. 

"  No,  all  that  I  can  see  are  carrying  loads  of  grapes." 

Seven  miles'  tramp  in  that  dust  and  sun  with  our 
luggage,  which  contained  photographic  things  too 
precious  to  leave  out  of  our  sight! 

Half  a  mile  from  the  station  we  passed  three  women 
going  along  in  a  sort  of  dog-trot  with  great  baskets  of 
figs,  just  picked,  on  their  heads,  a  rolled-up  bit  of  cloth 
between  head  and  basket. 

"  I  think  I  have  the  point  of  view  of  those  women," 
said  my  wife's  voice  from  the  pillar  of  dust  that  sur- 
rounded and  hid  her  as  the  salt  did  Mrs.  Lot. 

In  a  short  time  a  farmer  who  had  been  on  our  train 
overtook  us.  He  was  carrying  a  heavy  sack  of  things 
the  neighbors  had  commissioned  him  to  buy  in  Mes- 
sina, and  in  one  hand  he  bore  two  salt  cod,  still  drip- 
ping with  brine.  Later  I  learned  that  salt  fish  are  a 
delicacy  in  Sicily  and  that  the  south  of  Europe  is  one 
of  the  best  markets  for  Gloucester  fishermen.  My 
imperfect  Italian  caught  his  ear  at  once,  and  when  he 


88      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

learned  that  my  native  tongue  was  English  he  de- 
manded eagerly  whether  1  had  been  in  America  or  not; 
and  when  I  answered  in  the  affirmative  he  said  I  must 
excuse  him,  but  were  we  not  the  friends  that  rich 
young  Antonio  Squadrito  was  expecting  ?  Reluc- 
tantly enough  I  said  we  were,  for  my  parting  words 
with  young  Squadrito  on  leaving  the  Lahn  were  that 
he  should  keep  our  coming  quiet  and  say  nothing  as 
to  our  nationality.  There  was  very  little  now  in  our 
appearance  or  conduct  to  show  we  were  Americans, 
and  all  through  our  travels  we  took  refuge  in  the  wide 
disparity  of  North  of  Italy  dialects  from  the  Sicilian, 
and  those  persons  who  did  not  think  us  Milanese  or 
Turinese  knew  we  must  be  French  or  Spanish — except 
in  Gualtieri.  There  Antonio  had  let  the  cat  out  of  the 
bag.  As  a  result  the  whole  town  had  been  in  a  state 
of  exalted  expectancy  for  weeks.  The  people  had  a 
carreia,  one  of  the  open,  springless  mule  carts,  trimmed 
and  decorated  ready  to  be  sent  to  meet  us,  and  in  fact 
our  arrival  was  to  be  a  public  festival,  but  there  was 
one  slip — I  had  not  sent  Antonio  a  letter  or  telegram, 
and  so  we  plodded  on  in  the  dust  unmet  and  unwel- 
comed. 

The  farmer  announced  himself  as  our  friend  and 
said  he  would  guide  us  straight  to  the  Squadrito 
house,  for  he  had  a  cousin  in  America,  close  to  New 
York, — in  Cincinnati  in  fact, — and,  with  the  blessing  of 
the  Holy  Mother,  if  his  wife  ever  got  well  enough,  he 
was  going  there  too,  taking  her  and  the  family. 

We  might  have  been  a  traveling  circus  or  an  army 
with  banners.  Of  every  five  people  we  met,  two  at 
least  turned  to  escort  us  back  to  the  town,  while  the 
news  of  our  arrival  was  shouted  to  the  inmates  of 
every  house  we  passed  and  to  the  hundreds  of  men, 


GUALTIERI-SICAMINO       89 

women  and  children  who  were  toiling  in  the  fields. 
We  overtook  a  flock  of  sheep  being  driven  two  miles 
to  water,  and  soon  we  formed  the  van  of  the  most 
picturesque  cavalcade  imaginable  —  men,  women, 
sheep,  babies,  donkeys  and  goats.  At  a  distance  the 
country  looked  sparsely  settled.  Close  at  hand  we 
found  that  it  veritably  swarmed  with  life,  for  the 
average  population  is  2,500  souls  to  the  square  mile. 

The  hills  shut  out  the  sun;  a  cool  breeze  sprang  up; 
the  boys  gathered  fresh  figs  for  us  from  the  wayside 
trees,  grapes  from  vineyards  as  we  passed,  black- 
berries from  bush-grown  stone-heaps,  apples,  pears, 
plums  and  Ficus  indicus,  the  thorn-covered,  mango- 
shaped  golden-yellow  fruit  which  grows  on  the  edge 
of  the  thick  leaves  of  the  cactus  hedges  of  Sicily,  and 
forms  a  very  important  and  staple  article  of  food  with 
the  poor.  There  is  a  Sicilian  proverb  which  says: 
V  No  matter  how  dire  the  misfortune,  there  are  fico- 
d'indias." 

Finally,  as  we  turned  a  sharp  corner  in  the  road,  we 
beheld  the  town,  lit  by  the  last  rays  of  the  sun  filtering 
through  a  defile  in  the  hills;  and,  weary,  hot  and  dusty 
as  we  were,  something  akin  to  relief  and  soothing 
satisfaction  stole  over  us  as  we  saw  that  it  and  the 
country  about  was  typical  of  all  we  had  seen  in  the 
other  provinces  of  southern  Italy. 

Gualtieri-Sicamino  is  a  mass  of  stone-built,  plaster- 
covered  houses  with  a  uniformity  of  architecture  which 
hardly  allows  one  to  distinguish  public  buildings, 
stores  or  churches  from  private  houses,  and  the  whole 
is  piled  up  against  the  face  of  a  lofty  hill.  Nearly  all 
villages  in  southern  Italy  are  on  the  hilltops  or  the  hill 
slopes,  so  that,  as  a  Roman  wrote  nearly  two  thousand 
years  ago,  "the  land  that  can  be  cultivated  with  ease 


9o      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

should  not  be  cumbered  with  habitations."  The  gen- 
eral plan  was  identical  with  that  of  dozens  of  other 
villages  we  had  visited:  a  street  or  two  circling  the 
base  of  the  hill,  one  or  two  tiny  squares,  bare  as  new- 
laid  eggs,  then  a  succession  of  zigzag  ways  towards 
the  top  of  the  hill:  ways, — they  are  not  streets,  be- 
cause in  some  places  they  are  not  more  than  three  feet 
wide,  and  one  third  of  the  way  the  ascent  is  so  sharp 
that  stone  steps  are  used.  The  village  is  much  as  it 
was  eight  hundred  years  ago.  Below  its  edge  is  the 
200-foot  ribbon  of  sand  and  shale,  strongly  walled  in 
along  its  whole  length  from  the  sea  to  the  heart  of  the 
mountains,  the  then  dry  torrente,  or  river  bed. 

Below  us  lay  Gualtieri,  with  its  white  walls  and 
dark  tiled  roofs,  a  rose-haze  over  it  from  the  sinking 
sun,  embowered  in  the  clustering  hills  dark  green  with 
vineyards,  olive  and  lemon  orchards,  the  white  belt  of 
the  torrente  below  and  radiating  ribbon  footpaths  along 
which  came  pannier-laden  donkeys ;  little  flocks  of  milk- 
goats;  stoop-shouldered  men  bearing  their  long-bladed 
hoes  and  spear-shaped  spades;  erect  women  with  bril- 
liant-colored skirts,  scarfs  or  kerchiefs,  water-jars, 
baskets,  panniers  or  bundles  on  their  heads. 

Our  little  procession  wound  down  to  the  bridge, 
which  looked  almost  Syracusan,  it  is  so  old,  and  across 
into  the  "square,"  on  one  side  of  which  is  the  prin- 
cipal church,  and  on  the  other  the  municipal  offices. 
The  description  sounds  well  enough;  but  the  church  is 
a  low,  squat  building  with  a  small  tower  in  which 
reposes  a  cracked  bell  and  a  noisy  clock,  while  the 
"municipal  offices"  are  two  rooms  on  the  second 
floor  of  a  merchant's  combined  store  and  home; 
the  square  is  possibly  sixty  by  one  hundred  feet,  the 
largest  open  space  in  the  community.     In  all  the  town 


■■Hi  ii        —   ^         ,  „,,,,„,  m,,    .     * ,. '  ^JHLjl*^"  ■■•  'Mm 


_. i_. 


The  Messenger — The  Guide — The   House  of  the   Squad- 
ritos — The   Town   (Gualtieri) 


GUALTIERI-SICAMINO       91 

there  is  not  a  street  over  twelve  feet  broad,  and  some 
would  measure  four  or  three.  As  we  wound  out  of 
the  square  into  one  of  these  narrow  ways  and  heard 
voices  proclaiming  on  every  hand  that  "Antonio's 
Americans"  had  arrived,  all  fears  that  Gualtieri  was 
too  urban,  and  not  a  true  type  of  the  rural  districts 
which  send  the  emigrants,  forever  vanished  from  our 
minds. 

Suddenly,  in  the  narrowest  part  of  the  way  in  which 
we  were,  I  saw  over  the  door  of  a  small  hole-like  room 
in  the  wall: 

BOTTEGA 

Dl 

NICOLA  SQUADRITO, 

and,  seeing  two  boys  at  work  with  a  small  anvil  and 
hand-drill,  knew  that  this  was  the  blacksmith  shop  of 
Antonio's  younger  brother.  Two  doors  beyond,  a 
kindly  old  face  appeared  at  the  door  an  instant,  our 
procession  set  up  a  shout,  and  something  told  me  this 
was  Antonio's  mother.  We  were  ushered  into  a  large, 
cool,  windowless  room  with  a  red-tiled  floor  and  bare, 
white  walls,  along  which  were  rows  and  rows  of  hand- 
made rush-bottomed  chairs.  There  must  have  been 
forty  of  them,  and  it  seemed  to  augur  well  for  the  size 
of  the  family;  but  we  learned  later  that  the  chairs  stood 
there  ready  for  the  throng  of  neighbors  who  came 
nightly  to  hear  Antonio  tell  of  the  marvels  of  America 
and  to  laugh  over  his  prodigious  yarns  of  buildings 
twenty  stories  high.  Nightly  they  would  shake  their 
heads  and  laugh,  and  then  Antonio  would  say:  "Just 
wait  till  my  American  friends  come,  and  you  can  ask 
them." 
Poor    Mrs.   Squadrito   was    almost   beside  herself. 


92      IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

Our  sudden  descent  upon  her,  the  absence  of  all  other 
members  of  the  family  in  the  vineyard  east  of  town, 
the  highly  excited  crowd  which  was  pushing  its  way 
into  the  doors  behind  us,  were  too  much  for  her,  and 
she  hastened  to  show  us  into  an  upper  room — Antonio's 
room,  we  could  see  at  a  glance — and  to  bar  out  the 
crowd. 

In  ten  seconds  she  had  brought  a  flask  of  fine  old 
Marsala,  in  thirty  more  a  plate  of  sugared  cakes,  in 
fifty  a  heaping  basket  of  several  sorts  of  grapes,  fresh 
figs,  pears,  apples,  etc.,  and  it  was  with  difficulty  she 
could  be  restrained  from  bringing  more.  Swift-footed 
small  boys  had  sped  to  bring  Antonio  and  others  of  the 
family.  Their  number  is  so  large  that,  unless  the 
individuals  are  properly  identified  the  reader  may  get 
them  confused. 

At  this  point  in  the  narrative  Antonio  and  his  father, 
being  home  on  a  visit,  are  to  be  subtracted  from  the 
portion  in  America.  Giuseppe,  twenty-nine  years  of 
age,  Carlino,  twenty-two,  and  Tomasino,  fourteen, 
are  in  charge  of  the  barber  shop  in  Stonington.  The 
total  is  father  and  mother,  ten  children,  one  daughter- 
in-law  and  one  grandchild;  and  the  nine  in  Italy,  be- 
sides Antonio  and  his  father,  are  as  follows: 

Giovanina,  the  oldest  daughter,  is  twenty-eight,  and 
a  lovable  girl.  For  some  years  she  was  rather  frail,  and 
her  marriage  with  her  soldier  lover  was  deferred.  He 
decided  to  stay  in  the  army  for  another  term,  and  he 
has  been  in  the  service  fourteen  years.  In  one  year 
more  he  is  to  be  discharged  with  a  life  pension,  and 
Giovanina  thinks  that  then  the  long,  romantic  dream 
of  her  life  will  come  true.  I  have  often  looked  at  her 
face,  sweet  by  reason  of  the  soul  that  shines  through 
its  mask  of  flesh  already  beginning  to  fade,  and  have 


GUALTIERI-SICAMINO       93 

wondered  if  there  was  not  a  great  disappointment 
awaiting  her  at  the  crest  of  the  hill. 

Next  in  the  family  comes  Maria,  a  bright-eyed 
girl  of  twenty-three,  wild  with  eagerness  to  go  to 
America. 

Carlino,  1  have  said,  is  already  in  America,  and  next 
younger  than  he  is  Nicola,  the  blacksmith,  with  a  shop 
in  which  he  does  really  wonderful  things  with  his 
hands.  One  day,  for  instance,  he  made  a  trunk  lock 
with  four  tumblers,  all  parts  from  raw  metal,  which 
was  truly  a  marvel  of  handicraft. 

Vincenzo  is  a  half-grown  boy,  merry,  tuneful  and 
irresponsible.  Giovanni,  Jr.,  and  Tono  are  ten,  eight 
and  six  years  of  age  respectively,  and  are  boys  of  the 
most  thoroughly  boyish  type,  only  that  they  have  early 
learned  the  great  lesson  of  southern  Italy  that  "he 
who  eats  must  toil." 

The  most  interesting  character  of  all  is  the  mother, 
now  fifty-four  years  of  age,  a  woman  of  most  kindly 
heart.  Her  hands  are  gnarled  and  knotted  with  toil. 
In  her  ears  are  heavy  gold  earrings  with  antique  coral 
centres.  Once  they  belonged  to  her  grandmother,  and 
some  day  they  will  descend  to  Caterina,  her  first 
granddaughter,  the  child  of  Giuseppe  and  his  wife 
Camela.  The  wife,  who  is  a  plain,  hearty  woman,  can 
scarcely  wait  for  the  day  when  she  reaches  New  York. 
Tears  of  joy  rise  in  her  eyes  at  the  very  mention  of 
her  husband's  name.  Little  Caterina,  or  Ina,  is  but 
five,  and  is  the  pet  of  all. 

But  here  the  family  and  half  the  neighborhood  come 
trooping  up  the  stairs,  escorting  Antonio,  who,  since 
his  arrival,  had  been  treated  like  a  king,  and  now  he 
welcomed  us  royally  and  we  were  dragged  into  a  per- 
fect maelstrom  of  introductions  to  cousins  and  friends, 


94      IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

to  emerge  a  trifle  confused  as  to  relationships  and 
names. 

When  we  had  removed  some  of  the  grime  of  our 
tramp  and  displayed  the  mysteries  of  our  kodak  to  the 
throng,  which  could  not  contain  its  impatience  con- 
cerning the  black  box  and  rolls  of  films,  we  were 
taken  on  a  twilight  walk  in  the  little  plot  of  vineyard 
ground  which  Antonio  had  bought  three  years  before, 
east  of  the  town. 

The  ostensible  object  of  the  walk  was  to  show  the 
town  to  us,  but  the  real  one,  as  we  soon  understood, 
was  to  show  us  to  the  town.  My  wife  walked  with 
Antonio  and  his  father;  Carmelo  Merlino,  the  shoe- 
maker and  steamship  agent,  took  my  arm,  and  the 
people  who  could  crowd  into  the  narrow  street, 
formed  a  procession  behind  us. 

From  that  time  on  we  lived  in  procession.  What- 
ever we  did,  big  or  little,  was  done  in  procession. 
Did  I  desire  to  take  a  photograph  of  the  town  in  the 
late  afternoon  from  the  hill  opposite,  five  hundred  in- 
habitants came  to  my  help.  If  my  wife  went  to  the 
public  laundry  with  the  women,  you  would  have 
thought  the  festival  of  the  patron  saint  of  laundries 
was  in  celebration.  Did  1  go  forth  to  the  fields  with  the 
men  at  dawn,  there  was  a  centurion's  host  to  witness. 

On  our  return  from  the  garden  it  was  after  six 
o'clock,  perhaps  near  seven,  and  we  found  many  peo- 
ple waiting  to  see  us,  and  in  the  next  half  hour  the 
neighborhood  called.  Family  after  family  poured  in, 
all  dressed  in  Sunday  attire,  and  as  we  sat  in  the  large 
second-floor  room  of  the  Squadritos'  house  the  entire 
apartment  was  thronged  to  suffocation,  while  in  the 
street  outside  there  were  people  enough  to  fill  a  circus 
tent. 


GUALTIERI-SICAMINO       95 

We  had  had  an  abundance  of  fruit,  but  were  not 
averse  to  a  little  dinner,  yet  none  appeared  to  be  forth- 
coming. Unsubstantial  as  it  was  to  us,  all  that  we 
had  to  say  was  meat  and  drink  to  the  people.  Rapt 
in  excitement  they  stood  listening  to  the  stories  of  the 
land  of  their  heart's  desire,  and  no  thought  of  food  dis- 
turbed them.  At  seven  o'clock  my  wife  had  told  all 
that  could  be  told  of  dresses,  manners  and  customs  in 
America.  At  eight  o'clock  1  concluded  an  impromptu 
lecture  on  the  topic  of  American  liberty;  still  no  dinner. 
At  nine  o'clock  my  wife  had  answered  the  last  of  the 
questions  on  the  cost  of  groceries,  rent  and  clothes, 
but  no  one  mentioned  dinner.  At  9: 30 1  had  described 
with  minuteness  what  factories  and  mills  were  like, 
and  my  wife  was  expressing  her  liking  for  Italian 
dishes.  At  ten  (having  lunched  at  eleven  o'clock  that 
morning)  we  both  showed  signs  of  faintness,  but  still 
talked  on.  At  eleven  all  the  children  were  asleep  on 
the  floor  or  in  their  mothers'  arms,  my  wife  seemed 
dead  of  fatigue,  and  my  own  exhaustion  was  com- 
plete, when  something  broke  the  spell  and  Mrs. 
Squadrito  suddenly  threw  up  her  hands  with  a  pious 
ejaculation  and  darted  up-stairs.  In  ten  minutes  we 
were  seated  at  a  most  delightful  supper,  including  a 
heaping  dish  of  boiled  snails.  The  whole  family  had 
forgotten  in  the  excitement  that  neither  they  nor  we 
had  dined,  but  they  certainly  made  up  for  the  over- 
sight. 

In  this  house,  as  in  most  others,  the  top  floor  was  used 
for  the  dining-room  and  kitchen.  The  kitchen  was  in 
one  corner — a  sort  of  low  altar  of  stone  and  plaster, 
with  a  hollow  in  the  centre  for  charcoal.  As  some 
American  architects  have  learned,  cooking  done  on  the 
top  floor  neither  scents  up  nor  heats  the  house. 


96      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

We  sat  chatting  about  the  table  until  the  cracked 
bell  in  the  tower  of  the  church  in  the  square  struck 
one,  then  my  wife  and  I  sought  the  repose  and  com- 
fort of  the  big,  high-set  bed  of  the  guest-room. 

It  was  a  strange  sound  which  awoke  me.  Paradox- 
ically, it  was  something  very  familiar.  Clear  and 
sweet,  very  distinct  in  the  air  of  the  early  morning,  a 
boy's  voice  high  up  in  the  terraced  vineyards  on  the 
slope  before  the  town  was  singing: 

"  Who  was  it  called  them  down  ? 
'Twas  Mister  Dooley,  brave  Mister  Dooley, 
The  finest  man  this  country  ever  knew  ; 

Diplomatic, 

Democratic, 
Oh!  Mister  Dooley — ooley — ooh." 

Then  there  broke  forth  the  chatter  of  men,  women 
and  children  who  were  gathering  grapes,  and  had 
stopped  to  listen  to  an  American  song.  The  boy  had 
been  in  America  two  years,  his  father  had  contracted 
consumption  working  in  the  New  York  subway,  and 
the  family  had  returned  that  he  might  recover  in  the 
balmy  air  of  Sicily.  One  day  the  boy  told  me  that  as 
soon  as  he  was  big  enough  (he  is  eight  years  old)  he 
was  going  to  run  away  and  go  to  America,  because 
he  could  make  more  money  selling  papers  after  school 
than  he  could  working  all  day  in  the  fields  in  Gualtieri, 
and  here  he  "  never  had  no  time  for  no  fun." 

The  spirit  of  this  incident  is  the  spirit  which  to-day 
stirs  all  Italy,  all  Greece,  all  Syria,  all  Hungary  and 
Roumania,  and  has  spread  deep  into  the  hearts  of 
the  people  of  the  whole  of  southern  Europe.  The 
eyes  of  the  poor  are  turned  with  longing  fancy  to 
"New  York."    That  is  the  magic  word  everywhere. 


GUALTIERI-SICAMINO       97 

The  sound  of  it  brings  light  to  a  hundred  million  faces 
in  those  lands,  and  oddly  enough  not  one  out  of  a 
thousand  but  believes  that  to  come  to  America  it  is 
necessary  to  come  to  New  York. 

When  I  opened  the  battened  shutters  that  took  the 
place  of  windows,  there  was  a  cool  inrush  of  fragrant 
air,  and  looking  down  from  the  balcony  I  saw  Nicola 
already  at  work  at  his  anvil.  Carmelo  Merlino  was  at 
his  shoemaker's  bench  set  out  before  the  door,  and 
across  the  way  the  Di  Bianca  girls  were  giving  the 
fat  baby  a  bath  in  a  large  yellow  bowl.  The  baby 
was  splashing  the  water  with  great  delight.  All  was 
peace  and  industry.  We  had  begun  our  first  full  day 
in  Gualtieri  life. 

People  are  up  betimes  in  Italy.  The  very  early 
morning  hours  are  best  for  work,  and  a  couple  of 
hours'  labor  is  often  accomplished  before  breakfast. 
An  ordinary  breakfast  is  vegetable  stew,  bread  and 
fruit, — in  summer  fresh  fruit,  in  winter  dried.  In  fruit- 
ripening  season,  on  every  house-top  and  balcony,  figs 
are  drying,  raisins  and  prunes  are  in  the  making,  and 
prematurely  plucked  fico-d'indias  are  being  made  ready 
for  winter  use.  Canned  fruit  is  little  used.  A  mash 
of  tomatoes  to  use  in  winter  with  spaghetti  is  always 
drying  at  door  or  on  house-top  in  sunshine. 

The  midday  meal  is  eaten  usually  about  1 1 130,  and 
is  much  the  same,  only  less  is  eaten  in  the  summer, 
and  perhaps,  though  only  once  or  twice  a  week,  some 
meat,  eggs  or  fowl  are  made  to  take  the  place  of  the 
vegetable  stew.  In  the  evening  soup  is  served,  made 
with  some  one  of  the  thousand  sorts  of  spaghetti  and 
macaroni,  as  I  will  call  it,  though  that  word  covers  only 
a  part  of  the  great  Italian  dish,  pasta.  A  meat  stew 
may  be  added  and  more  fruit  and  wine.     I  have  seen 


98      IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

poor  families  dine  heartily  off  black  bread,  fried 
pumpkin  and  fico-d'indias,  and  in  homes  of  more  pre- 
tension I  have  eaten  very  good  course  dinners. 

The  men,  women  and  children  work  in  the  fields, 
vineyards  and  orchards,  transport  products  to  market  on 
mule-back,  in  donkey  carts  or  on  platform  carts 
drawn  by  great  white  or  gray,  long-horned  oxen.  A 
team  of  the  latter  is  a  beautiful  sight.  The  women  not 
in  the  fields,  in  addition  to  household  work,  carry  heavy 
jars  of  water  on  their  heads  ;  wash  clothes  in  the  public 
lavacro  ;  pick  grapes,  olives,  fruits,  almonds,  walnuts  ; 
cut,  mangle  and  clean  hemp  ;  gather,  flail  out;  and 
clean  peas,  beans,  etc. ;  and  bear  children.  The  duty 
of  maternity  is  the  first  thought  of  the  Italian  woman. 
Fecundity  is  the  prime  marital  virtue  and  her  principal 
hold  on  her  husband's  esteem. 

There  are  many  labors  which  are  shared  by  men, 
women  and  children,  such  as  herding  the  goats,  tread- 
ing the  grapes  in  the  winepress,  vegetable-gathering 
and  attending  to  the  irrigation.  This  latter  is  very  im- 
portant. The  loads  which  men  and  women  can  carry 
on  their  heads  are  huge.  I  have  seen  a  man  coming  in  at 
the  finish  of  a  five-mile  trot  with  120  pounds  of  grapes 
on  his  head,  and  all  the  way  he  has  maintained  a  gait  very 
similar  to  that  of  a  dog.  Very  early  in  life  the  children 
are  taught  to  carry  loads  on  their  heads. 

The  morning  of  the  second  day,  people  began  to 
come  to  us  for  advice  and  information.  There  were 
two  or  three  old  men  in  Gualtieri, — old  beyond  the  abil- 
ity for  anything  but  very  light  labor.  They  wanted  to 
send  their  sons  to  America  that  the  boys  might  get 
a  foothold  and  then  bring  them.  They  all  asked 
me  what  was  the  best  work  for  a  young  man  to  do 
in  my  country.     All  were  farmers  living  in  the  village, 


Part  of  the  Family  Gathered  in  the  Kitchen  {From  left  to 
right:  Ina,  Tono,  Giovanina,  Antonio,  Airs.  Squadrito, 
Giovanni ,  Jr ., N icola ,  A 1 aria) — Felicia  Pulejo — Concetta 


GUALTIERI-SICAMINO       99 

who  went  out  each  day  to  work  the  little  patches  of 
ground  they  called  farms. 

These  holdings  were  almost  invariably  owned 
by  some  one  else,  a  few  by  well-to-do  people  in  the 
village,  most  of  them  by  the  Duke  of  Avarna,  who 
lives  in  Naples  and  never  comes  near  Sicily,  though 
he  owns  nearly  all  the  ground  around  Gualtieri. 
The  actual  farmers  tilled  the  soil,  bought  or  pre- 
served the  seed,  supplied  the  implements,  looked  after 
the  construction  and  maintenance  of  the  irrigation, 
harvested  the  crop  and  often  marketed  it,  then  gave 
the  landowner's  agent,  the  middleman  at  Faro  near 
by,  half  of  all  they  produced.  Of  what  they  had  left, 
three  per  cent  went  for  direct  or  indirect  taxes,  and 
they  gave  "voluntarily"  to  the  church  one  tenth.  A 
little  calculation  will  show  one  that  even  if  a  farmer 
have  a  prosperous  season  and  be  not  in  debt  or  have 
any  misfortunes,  he  retains,  when  he  has  finished  his 
contributions  to  the  support  of  the  non-producing 
classes,  aristocrats,  tradesmen,  army,  church,  and 
middlemen,  but  thirty-eight  per  cent  of  what  he  pro- 
duces by  toil  from  before  dawn  till  after  dark. 
When  I  say  that  ninety-four  per  cent  of  the  produc- 
tion in  southern  Italy  is  agricultural,  and  that  the  one 
important  source  of  wealth  is  the  cultivation  of  the 
soil,  and  the  control  of  wealth  the  ownership  of  the 
land,  it  can  be  understood  how  and  why  the  poor 
farmer,  having  heard  what  betterment  there  is  in  the 
United  States  will  borrow  money  at  twenty  per  cent 
for  six  months  to  get  himself  or  a  son  over  here  to  es- 
tablish a  foothold  from  which  he  can  broaden  a  space 
of  relief  and  liberty. 

Many  of  these  boys  in  Gualtieri,  anxious  to  go,  de- 
sired to  escape  the  forcible  conscription  every  two 


ioo    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

years,  which  takes  every  other  able-bodied  young 
man,  and  keeps  one  fifteenth  of  the  able-bodied  men 
of  the  country  under  arms  at  all  times.  The  Italian 
government  never  relinquishes  its  claim  on  its  men  for 
military  duty,  and  no  matter  whether  they  become 
American  citizens  or  not,  if  they  have  not  served  their 
term  and  return  to  Italy,  they  are  arrested  and  con- 
scripted. A  notable  test  case  of  this  was  that  of  the 
young  man  from  Baltimore, — Schipriano,  son  of  an 
Italian  general, — in  which  the  government  won. 

Even  though  the  Squadritos  have  raised  themselves 
to  an  independent  footing  in  Gualtieri  and  own  a  little 
land,  the  power  of  the  landlord  was  demonstrated 
fully  to  me  when,  on  the  second  day  of  our  stay,  Gio- 
vanni Squadrito  got  out  from  among  the  things  he  had 
brought  back  from  America  a  nice  piece  of  oilcloth,  a 
treasure  in  Italy,  and  tramped  off  to  Faro  and  presented 
it  to  the  middleman,  the  agent  of  the  Duke  of  Avarna, 
as  a  sort  of  propitiatory  offering.  At  the  agent's 
office  there  was  a  considerable  staff  of  clerks  and  bail- 
iffs, which  showed  me  what  a  business  is  this  collect- 
ing of  the  crops  and  rents. 

One  poor  old  woman  toiled  across  the  hills  to  see 
my  wife  to  implore  her  to  take  her  to  America.  She 
had  a  daughter  who  had  gone  there  as  a  servant  last 
year,  and  in  the  three  months  previous  to  the  old 
woman's  first  visit  to  us  she  had  had  no  letter  or 
word  of  news.  She  was  nearly  frantic  and  wished  to 
go  in  search  of  the  girl.  In  the  time  we  were  in  Gual- 
tieri before  our  party  started  for  New  York,  no  tidings 
came.  My  wife  was  forced  to  tell  her  that  she  could 
never  go  to  America,  the  age  limit  and  the  public- 
charge  law  would  stop  her  at  Ellis  Island  and  send  her 
back. 


GUALTIERI-SICAMINO      101 

It  was  not  unusual  for  a  whole  family  from  far  over 
the  hills  to  arrive  late  some  afternoon  to  pay  their  re- 
spects, and  before  they  had  been  seated  long  a  certain 
uneasiness  on  the  part  of  the  women  culminated  in  the 
oldest  man  of  the  party  producing  from  inside  his  shirt 
a  strip  of  paper,  much  thumbed,  torn  and  pasted.  In 
faded  ink  it  bore  the  names  and  addresses  of  a  son,  a 
brother,  father,  perhaps  daughter  across  the  ocean. 
Though  they  knew  my  home  to  be  NewYork,  they  were 
often  disappointed  because  I  could  not  give  them  news 
of  the  beloved  relative  in  Bangor,  Me.;  Birmingham, 
Ala. ;  Brownsville,  Tex. ;  in  Chili,  Brazil  or  Canada.  One 
man  had  a  button  photograph  of  Francesco  Zotti,  who 
had  formerly  been  my  neighbor  in  New  York.  As  it 
chanced  I  once  shook  hands  with  Zotti,  and  when  1 
told  his  relatives  this  they  actually  cried  for  joy. 

The  people  have  no  true  conception  of  America, 
though  Italy  is  flooded  with  books  of  views  principally 
of  New  York  and  the  Pan-American  Exposition,  and 
there  is  a  brave  effort  made  by  the  Italians  in  America  to 
write  home  adequate  descriptions  of  the  new  land. 
Once  I  was  called  upon  to  settle  a  most  bitter  and  ac- 
rimonious dispute  between  two  men  as  to  what 
America  was  like.  One,  who  had  a  brother  in  Wilkes- 
barre,  Pa.,  thought  it  was  all  coal  mines,  steel  mills 
and  railroads,  while  the  other,  whose  cousin  worked  in 
a  New  York  barber  shop,  maintained  that  America 
was  all  high  buildings  and  railroads  which  run  over  the 
house-tops.  Each  new  letter  caused  the  argument  to 
break  out  afresh. 

One  woman,  who  had  a  husband  working  in  a 
saloon  in  Pittsburg,  was  very  effusive  in  her  greeting 
and  her  conversation  with  us  until,  in  answer  to  her 
question  as  to  what  kind  of  parrot  we  had,  I  replied  : 


102    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

"Why,  my  dear  madam,  we  have  no  parrot." 

I  noticed  a  look  of  suspicion  shoot  across  her  face, 
and  her  manner  became  strangely  reserved.  I  could 
see  that  from  that  moment  she  was  extremely  skep- 
tical about  anything  we  said.  In  a  little  while,  when 
talking  aside  with  some  member  of  the  family,  she 
openly  expressed  her  doubt  that  we  were  Americans 
or  had  ever  been  in  America.  This  was  laughingly 
repeated  to  me  for  a  reassertion  as  to  our  nationality. 

"What  makes  you  think  we  are  not  Americans?" 
I  asked  the  dubious  visitor. 

"  Because  you  have  no  parrot." 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  I  thought  she  must  be  de- 
mented, but  in  further  explanation  she  produced  a 
bunch  of  her  husband's  letters  to  prove  her  statements, 
and,  reading  them  through  hastily,  I  found  that  there  is 
a  parrot  in  the  saloon  where  he  'tends  bar,  and  one 
across  the  street,  and  the  things  these  two  parrots  do 
and  say  make  up  the  burden  of  his  letters  home,  so  his 
wife  was  convinced  that  America  is  a  land  of  parrots. 

For  days  there  was  a  constant  succession  of  gaieties, 
and  I  was  glad  we  were  not  compelled  to  eat  and  drink 
one  tenth  of  what  was  set  before  us.  We  were 
loaded  with  messages  from  fathers,  mothers,  brothers, 
sweethearts,  wives,  children,  and  friends  for  those 
already  in  America. 

The  Mannino  family,  living  across  the  torrente  in 
the  western  section  of  the  town,  being  relatives  of  the 
Squadritos,  were  foremost  in  trying  to  do  the  honors 
of  the  relationship  and  were  much  concerned  that  a 
young  nephew  go  with  us,  but  I  saw  at  a  glance  that 
he  had  favus,  and  1  told  them  he  would  be  excluded. 
He  was  insistent  and  started  for  Naples  to  take  a 
steamer  of  another  line,  having  been  assured  that  by 


GUALTIERI-SICAMINO      103 

the  payment  of  one  hundred  francs  to  some  persons 
at  Naples  he  could  be  smuggled  through.  Soon  a 
telegram  came  from  Naples,  saying  the  people  who 
were  going  to  smuggle  him  had  robbed  him  of  every 
cent.  He  asked  for  more  money,  it  was  sent  him,  and 
he  sailed.  I  have  so  far  failed  to  find  any  trace  of  him, 
but  he  did  not  return  to  Gualtieri  and  I  believe  he  must 
have  entered  the  United  States  through  Canada,  as  this 
is  a  mode  of  ingress  the  United  States  is  yet  seeking 
to  completely  block.  Of  all  the  wealth  of  trickery 
and  immigration  fraud  which  I  afterwards  was  able  to 
lay  my  hands  upon,  this  was  the  very  first  hint,  and 
yet  what  would  have  been  a  fine  specific  case  has 
escaped  me. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  SICILIAN  COUNTRYSIDE 

IT  seemed  wise,  during  our  stay  in  Gualtieri- 
Sicamino,  to  make  a  study  of  more  than  lay  in  the 
province  of  Messina,  and  so  we  pursued  the  same 
methods  of  research  employed  in  the  provinces  of  the 
mainland,  but  found  the  conditions  of  life  among  the 
Sicilians  so  equable  with  that  of  Gualtieri-Sicamino, 
that  to  tell  what  we  saw  elsewhere  would  be  but  to 
repeat  -what  is  said  of  the  village  home  of  the 
Squadritos,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  notable 
incidents. 

The  northern  side  of  the  island  is  much  more  fertile 
and  is  therefore  more  densely  populated  than  the 
southern  slopes,  which  are  unprotected  from  the  hot 
winds  from  Africa;  and  in  the  mountains  back  from 
Girgenti  and  Sciacca  where  travel  is  quite  difficult 
except  on  mule-back,  the  state  of  the  people  is  of  the 
most  primitive  sort,  and  a  man  who  can  read  and 
write  is  a  man  of  distinction  in  the  community  in 
which  he  lives.  Some  of  the  families  are  of  a  com- 
plexion that  is  nearly  Malayan,  and  their  long  black 
hair  is  beautiful  to  see.  Wherever  a  branch  office  of 
a  steamship  ticket  broker  has  been  established  and 
emigration  started,  or  wherever  the  tourist  goes 
scattering  gold,  there  is  a  marked  difference  from  the 
communities  where  a  stranger  is  nearly  a  catastrophe. 

The  western  end  of  the  island  is  the  famous  Marsala 
wine  district,  and  one  firm  controls  all  of  the  best 


Visitors  in  the  Author's  Room — Teresa  di  Bianca — The  Old 
Woman  up  the  Valley — Shyness  in  Shawl  and  Pattens — 
Small  Children  Labor  in  the  Fields 


THE   SICILIAN   COUNTRYSIDE  105 

vineyards  but  a  few,  which  are  gradually  being  forced 
into  the  monopoly.  One  man  who  was  regularly 
employed  by  this  company  told  me  that  he  received 
thirty-five  lire  per  month  for  ten  hours'  labor  per  day 
(about  twenty-one  cents  per  day). 

Catania  is  the  exporting  centre  of  the  eastern  end  of 
a  rather  prosperous  sulphur-mining  district  on  the  east- 
ern coast  of  the  island,  and  in  this  harbor  are  vessels 
constantly  loading  with  sulphur  for  the  American  and 
German  markets.  It  is  estimated  that  about  fifty  thou- 
sand people  derive  their  livelihood  from  this  industry, 
and  it  is  the  one  notable  industry  other  than  agriculture 
in  the  entire  island.  The  largest  though  not  the  most 
fertile  plain  of  Sicily  is  about  Catania,  and  some 
very  fine  estates  are  to  be  found  there,  owned  for  the 
most  part  by  wealthy  people  in  Messina  or  Naples, 
perhaps  resident  in  the  beautiful  cities  of  northern 
Italy. 

The  political  disturbances  which  have  made  Sicily 
an  uncertain  quantity  in  years  past,  the  comparative 
isolation  of  Palermo  from  the  central  government,  and 
the  effect  of  the  traditions  of  the  Sicilian  Vespers 
(1282  a.  d.)  which  are  well  known  to  every  man, 
woman  and  child,  topped  by  the  natural  supremacy 
of  the  educated  unscrupulous  over  the  ignorant  well- 
meaning,  have  caused  Palermo  to  become  to  a  certain 
extent  what  Naples  is, — the  scene  of  aggregated 
rogueries.  The  past  twenty  years  have  seen  mal- 
feasances by  high  officials,  impositions  by  aristocrats, 
commercial  and  political  plots,  and  outrages  by 
declared  criminals,  which  brand  the  beautiful  capital  of 
the  Sicilian  state  as  a  nesting-place  of  the  boldest  and 
most  nefarious  malefactors  in  all  Italy.  The  common 
people    are    not    dishonest    in    the    degree  that  the 


106    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

Neapolitans  are,  but  the  educated  classes  can  boast 
some  bright  and  shining  lights  in  the  public  arid 
private  hold-up  game  that  should  make  even  St.  Louis 
or  Philadelphia  envious.  An  English  officer  of  a  Liver- 
pool tramp  steamer,  who  has  spent  a  very  great  deal 
of  time  in  Palermo  when  shore  superintendent  of  a 
line  in  the  lemon  trade,  told  me  that  "a  Palermo 
politician  can  give  any  Tammany  district  leader  cards 
and  spades,  and  beat  him  with  his  hands  tied." 

Col.  John  A.  Weber,  of  Buffalo,  formerly  Immigrant 
Commissioner  at  the  Port  of  New  York,  thinks  im- 
migration should  be  encouraged  to  an  even  greater 
volume  than  at  present,  but  that  dishonest  and  illegal 
naturalization  is  a  rotten  spot  in  the  matter.  In  this  he 
is  correct,  and  1  would  add  that  my  observations  have 
been  that  more  men  from  Palermo,  who  have  found 
even  that  city  too  hot  for  them,  are  engaged  in  the 
brokerage  of  naturalization  papers  in  the  United  States 
and  Italy  than  any  other  city's  representatives.  A  bill 
newly  introduced  by  Congressman  Gulden,  of  New 
York,  is  intended  as  a  corrective,  but  I  doubt  its 
efficiency. 

One  of  the  first  things  that  strikes  the  American  vis- 
itor to  the  rural  districts  of  Calabria,  Sicily  or  Apulia, 
and  even  farther  north,  is  the  antiquated  processes  em- 
ployed by  the  farmers.  A  man  who  knows  what  a 
sulky  plow  and  a  harvester  are  rebels  at  the  sight  of 
an  entire  peasant  family  spading  up  a  field  or  reap- 
ing a  crop  with  sickles,  and  there  is  a  vast  difference 
between  a  big  green  and  red  Studebaker  wagon  drawn 
by  two  good  horses  and  loaded  to  the  top  boards  with 
apples  or  potatoes,  and  a  string  of  donkeys,  women, 
and  children  laden  with  paniers  and  head-baskets;  but 
the  introduction  of  modern  farming  methods  into  Italy 


THE   SICILIAN   COUNTRYSIDE  107 

would  have  an  effect  equivalent  to  a  visit  of  plague. 
The  three  million  three  hundred  thousand  people  who 
live  from  the  soil  in  Sicily,  for  instance,  win  for  each 
his  portion  of  food  stuffs  by  hand  labor  on  the  farms 
or  in  the  village  workshops,  where  work  is  traded  for 
food  very  often  directly;  and  the  introduction  of  ma- 
chinery which  would  dispense  with  the  labor  of  more 
than  half  the  people  would  upset  the  system  of  divi- 
sion of  products  of  the  soil  and  prove  a  terrible  ca- 
lamity. 

Outside  of  the  number  of  a  few  noted  vineyards 
where  there  are  power  plants  for  wine-making,  the 
great  volume  of  Sicilian  wine,  which  is  strong,  of  good 
nutritious  quality  and  flavor,  is  produced  by  hand  pro- 
cesses. The  grapes  are  gathered  in  season  by  men, 
women  and  children,  and  borne  in  paniers  or  baskets 
to  the  trampling-vats,  which  are  often  two  miles  from 
the  vineyard,  and  in  some  instances  more.  1  have  seen 
a  half-dozen  little  girls,  the  youngest  too  small  to  speak 
plainly,  the  oldest  not  over  eight,  going  plodding  along 
in  the  dust  between  vineyard  and  press,  with  loads  of 
grapes  on  their  heads. 

The  grapes  are  dumped  into  the  stone-built,  plastered 
trampling-vat,  which  drains  into  a  butt,  and  when 
enough,  say  a  layer  of  six  inches  of  thickness,  has  been 
put  in,  the  peasants  get  in  with  pants  and  skirts  rolled 
up,  and  tramp  the  grapes  into  a  pulp.  This  trampling 
is  usually  given  up  to  old  men  or  women  whose  sight 
is  defective,  or  whose  hands  are  distorted  by  accident 
or  rheumatism  from  years  of  wine-drinking,  and  who 
are  thus  not  so  valuable  at  picking  and  carrying  grapes. 
1  remember,  at  a  press  near  Collesamo,  seeing  two  old 
women  trampling  grapes  with  their  skirts  rolled  up  and 
pinned  about  their  hips,  and  far  up  on  their  thighs  were 


io8    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

the  purple  stains  of  the  fruit.  As  they  tramped  they 
sang  the  high,  nasal,  droning  canto  of  their  village. 

The  pulp  is  taken  out  in  forms  and  put  into  a  press 
which  operates  by  screw  power,  the  screw  being  a 
huge  beam  of  wood  which  has  had  a  screw  thread 
carved  on  it  by  hand,  and  the  power  is  the  leverage  of 
a  pole  mortised  into  the  top  of  the  upright  screw,  and 
sloping  down  to  where  two  men  can  seize  it,  or  a  horse, 
ox  or  donkey  be  hitched  to  it. 

One  of  the  wine-presses  in  Gualtieri  is  owned  by  a 
fine  old  country  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Betto,  a 
freeholder  who  has  prospered  in  the  heating  and  forg- 
ing of  the  several  iron  she  has  in  the  community  fire; 
and  after  a  visit  to  his  press  he  took  us  up  to  his  house, 
one  of  the  very  best  in  the  region,  and  set  before  us 
wine  that  was  so  old  it  had  changed  color  twice  and 
was,  at  the  time  of  uncorking,  a  pale  amber  with  light- 
flecks  in  it  here  and  there. 

If  there  were  spots  in  the  southern  provinces  on  the 
peninsula  where  the  irrigation  systems  were  worthy  of 
note,  then  indeed  did  the  artificial  watering  of  the  soil 
in  Sicily  appear  wonderful.  In  that  extremely  fertile 
spot  called  the  Conca  d'Oro  "Shell  of  Gold,"  which 
surrounds  Palermo,  not  only  is  every  natural  spring  and 
stream  sought  out  and  redirected,  but  deep  artesian 
wells  tap  the  subterranean  waters.  Where  the  sides  of 
the  mountains  in  the  interior  are  terraced  far  up,  in  an 
effort  to  increase  the  area  of  tillable  land,  water  con- 
duits have  been  hewn  out  of  solid  rock  in  spots,  and 
streams  carried  for  miles  over  barren  places  to  moisten  a 
patch  or  two  of  productive  soil.  Looking  on  such  works 
of  patience,  one  can  fully  realize  the  hard  necessity  of  the 
Sicilian;  and  one  cannot  help  thinking  how  much  better 
it  would  be  for  all  concerned  if  the  Sicilian  peasant, 


THE   SICILIAN   COUNTRYSIDE  109 

when  he  emigrates  to  the  United  States,  instead  of  be- 
coming a  barber,  a  fruit-peddler,  a  trencher,  or  follow- 
ing some  other  of  the  favorite  temporary  pursuits 
which  allow  the  immigrants  to  congregate  in  large  cities 
or  their  environs,  he  should  be  given  an  opportunity 
to  try  his  irrigating  skill  on  some  of  the  fine  undevel- 
oped land  in  the  West,  where  a  little  carefully  applied 
water  and  seed  will  bring  any  man  a  wealth  of  results 
at  harvest-time. 

I  do  not  think  there  was  a  soul  of  reasoning  years 
within  a  radius  of  several  miles  of  the  mountain  village 
of  Gualtieri-Sicamino  who  did  not  know  that  on  the 
last  Tuesday  of  September,  Antonio  Squadrito,  with  a 
part  of  his  family,  a  number  of  neighbors,  and  his  two 
American  friends,  would  be  leaving  for  Naples,  to  em- 
bark thence  on  the  Prin^essin  Irene  for  New  York. 
When,  in  the  sixth  year  preceding,  Antonio  had  been 
one  of  a  handful  of  the  first  emigrants  from  that  sec- 
tion, every  one,  even  his  own  family,  had  been  dubious 
and  pessimistic  about  the  venture.  Since  then  more 
than  one  tenth  of  the  population  has  followed  him, 
and  any  remaining  pessimism  was  restrained,  and 
those  who  were  too  poor  to  go,  too  old  or  too  well 
situated  to  take  new  chances,  vented  openly  expres- 
sions of  envy. 

From  San  Filipo,  a  near-by  village,  where  almost 
half  of  the  people  have  the  dreaded  eye-disease,  tra- 
choma, an  old  man  hobbled  over  to  Gualtieri  to  ask  if 
there  was  not  some  way  that  he  could  go  to  America. 
He  had  a  nephew  earning  $1.20  a  day  in  the  mines  in 
Belmont  County,  Ohio,  and  he  felt  sure  that  if  he  got 
there  his  nephew  would  find  him  work  enough  to  do. 
He  said  he  could  sell  his  few  belongings  for  five  hun- 
dred lire,  enough  to  take  himself  and  his  wife  to  Ohio. 


no    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

I  looked  at  his  gaping,  granulated  lids  and  told  him 
that  he  could  never  go.  He  sat  with  his  head  bent  on 
the  top  of  his  staff  for  a  long  time  in  silence,  then,  with 
working  features  and  trembling  hands,  rose  and  said 
good-bye.  A  day  or  so  later  a  very  brown,  shy  little 
girl  brought  over  three  fine  squashes,  a  present  to  us 
from  the  old  pair. 

1  was  somewhat  concerned  when  I  learned  that  Con- 
cetta  Fomica,  a  beautiful  young  girl  of  sixteen,  a  rela- 
tive of  the  Squadrito  family,  who  was  to  go  with  us, 
was  the  daughter  of  a  San  Filipian  and  had  lived  in  the 
afflicted  village.  She  had  some  slight  inflammation  of 
the  eyes,  but  it  did  not  seem  to  be  trachoma,  and  Dr. 
Giunta,  the  village  medico,  assured  me  that,  though 
her  father  had  it,  she  did  not.  Since  the  disease  is 
highly  contagious  by  contact  of  hand,  towel,  handker- 
chief or  anything  that  the  head  touches,  and  there  are 
few  oculists  who  claim  to  be  able  to  effect  permanent 
cures  and  none  who  are  able  to  remove  the  cicatrices 
from  the  inside  of  the  lids,  the  causes  for  concern  can  be 
easily  understood.  There  were  only  two  cases  in  Gual- 
tieri,  so  Dr.  Giunta  said,  and  one  was  her  father.  He 
is  blind  almost  half  the  time.  Those  who  are  known 
to  have  the  disease  are  required  to  have  separate  toilet 
articles  for  their  own  use. 

Antonio,  as  the  actual  head  of  the  Squadrito  family, 
was  in  hot  water  constantly  over  the  matter  of  who 
should  go  to  America  and  who  should  not.  AH  of 
the  remaining  members  of  the  family,  with  the  possi- 
ble exception  of  the  eldest  daughter,  Giovanina,  and 
the  mother,  were  wild  to  come  to  America  and  join 
the  three  brothers  at  their  little  barber  shop  in  Stoning- 
ton,  Conn.  Giovanina  alone  was  looking  forward  to 
the  day  of  her  marriage  with  her  soldier  lover.    The 


THE  SICILIAN   COUNTRYSIDE  in 

small  boys  were  simply  insane  on  the  subject  of 
America.  One  of  them  approached  my  wife  with  an 
air  of  great  mystery  one  day  and  confided  to  her  a 
plan  whereby  he  would  himself  borrow  the  money  to 
buy  his  ticket,  and  she  could  hide  him  under  her  shawl 
and  bring  him  through.  But  a  great  reversal  in  the 
family  plans  came  when  Giovanni,  the  father,  who,  re- 
membering his  two  hard  years  in  America,  announced 
that  he  had  come  home  to  stay.  He  said  he  liked 
home  and  village  life  too  well  to  go  back.  I  told  him 
that  I  believed  the  restless  germ  of  the  American  spirit 
lurked  somewhere  in  his  system  and  that  he  would 
change  his  mind.  This  has  proved  entirely  true.  As 
I  write,  a  letter  lies  before  me  in  which  he  says  that  he 
wants  to  come  back.  Home  comforts  and  familiar 
pleasures  and  labors  are  all  right,  but  he  "can't 
stand  it." 

When  the  father  had  so  decided,  there  was  no  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  the  mother  should  come,  and  the 
small  boys'  chances  were  effaced.  Nicola  decided  to 
stay  by  his  prosperous  smithy,  Maria  clung  to  her 
mother,  and  Vincenzo,  who  had  a  cartelaginous 
growth  over  his  left  eye,  was  told  to  wait  till  his  eye 
had  been  operated  upon  and  then  he  might  come.  Of 
course,  there  was  a  small  storm,  especially  from  the 
younger  members  of  the  household;  but  Antonio 
poured  oil  on  the  troubled  waters  by  promising  to 
return  next  year  and  take  every  one  who  would  go. 
It  was  a  treacherous  compromise,  and  since  the  father 
has  changed  his  mind  I  believe  this  year  will  see 
nearly  the  entire  family  in  America. 

We  were  to  be  joined  at  Messina  by  Giuseppe  Car- 
dillo  and  several  other  people,  and  by  the  Papalia  fam- 
ily from  Monforte-Spadafora;  but  our  party  as  finally 


112    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

constituted  had  the  following  people  from  Gualtieri, 
and  throughout  the  trip  they  continued  to  be  our  party 
proper  and  were  directly  under  our  care: 

Antonio  Squadrito,  Camela  Squadrito  and  her  child, 
Caterina;  Mrs.  Squadrito's  brother,  Giovanni  Pulejo,  a 
barber;  Felicia  Pulejo,  a  nephew;  Concetta  Fomica, 
the  pretty  young  cousin;  Antonio  Nastasia,  a  sixteen- 
year-old  boy  neighbor;  Gaetano  Mullura,  in  the  same 
category;  Nicola  Curro,  aged  twenty-seven,  an  inti- 
mate friend  of  the  family,  a  finished  cabinet-maker; 
Nunzio  Giunta,  son  of  a  prominent  family  of  the  vil- 
lage, a  big,  powerful  fellow  of  twenty-three,  just  out 
of  five  years'  service  in  the  police  or  Carabineers; 
Antonio  Genino,  twenty-one  years  of  age,  a  cheese- 
maker  going  to  a  cousin  in  Philadelphia;  and  Salvatore 
Niceta,  Benedetto  Runzio,  Luciano  Sofia  and  Salvatore 
Damico,  four  farmer-boys  from  Gualtieri-Socosa,  a  de- 
tached village  of  the  community,  all  going  to  the  Banca 
Gelantado  in  Philadelphia,  destined  for  the  mines. 

These  boys  afforded  a  very  fine  example  of  the 
latest  methods  of  evading  the  contract-labor  law. 
They  had  no  contract  in  writing,  merely  the  letter  of 
an  uncle  of  one  of  them  promising  work  if  they  would 
come.  He  was  not  to  employ  them,  but  he  would 
turn  them  over  to  men  who  would.  This  is  the 
method  by  which  scores  of  big  corporations  in  Amer- 
ica, which  dare  not  import  Italian  laborers  by  reason 
of  the  law  on  this  matter,  do  it  by  making  the  contract 
here  with  a  relative  or  friend  of  some  group  of  men  in 
an  Italian  community,  and  the  relative  or  friend  brings 
them  over.  The  men  are  instructed  to  answer  the 
question  as  to  whether  they  have  been  promised  work 
or  not  by  saying  they  have  not.  Out  of  1903's  ap- 
proximate million  emigrants,  only  1,086  were  refused 


THE   SICILIAN   COUNTRYSIDE  113 

admittance  as  alien  contract  laborers.  One  large  in- 
dustrial corporation  at  Buffalo,  N.  Y.,  alone  received 
nearly  half  that  many,  and  those  who  passed  success- 
fully through  to  other  parts  of  the  country  can  be 
easily  imagined.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  defeat  this  fraud  by  any  operations  on  this 
side  of  the  sea. 

In  a  later  chapter  there  will  be  shown  the  outlines  of 
a  plan  which  will  offset  the  weaknesses  of  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  alien  contract-labor  law,  and  I  shall  throw 
light  in  numbers  of  places  on  the  true  meaning  of 
"  assisted  emigration." 

The  first  official  procedure  of  the  many  and  intricate 
ones  necessary  for  the  departure  of  emigrants  and 
their  admission  to  the  United  States  was  the  obtaining 
of  the  passports  for  the  male  members  of  the  party. 
The  women  and  children  are  entered  on  the  passport 
of  some  man  of  their  family  or  party.  The  first  step 
is  getting  the  birth  certificate  from  the  secretary  of  the 
municipality  in  which  one  is  born,  so  Antonio,  the 
elder  Pulejo,  Concetta's  father,  young  Giunta,  Curro, 
and  the  father  of  the  Socosa  boys  went  before  Gia- 
como  Marini,  and  when  he  had  consulted  the  register 
and  found  that  all  had  been  duly  born  in  Gualtieri, 
birth-certificates  were  issued,  signed  by  himself  and 
the  president  of  the  municipality,  or  mayor.  As  for  my- 
self, wishing  to  return  as  an  Italian  to  America  and  not 
as  an  American,  a  birth-certificate  was  issued  to  me  as 
having  been  born  nel  commune  di  Londra,  son  of 
Paolo  Brandi  and  Migone  Caterina.  I  regret  to  say  it 
was  necessary  to  take  undue  advantage  of  the  old  sec- 
retary to  carry  my  point.  Precious  little  good  it  did 
me,  though. 

These    birth-certificates  were    then   forwarded   by 


114    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

Carmelo  Merlino,  the  shoemaker  steamship  agent,  who 
was  on  a  high  wave  of  prosperity  through  sending  so 
many  people  at  once,  to  one  Mazzulo,  in  Messina, 
whose  nominal  duties  are  to  take  the  birth-certificates 
before  the  questura  or  police  headquarters  of  Messina 
district,  where  the  personal  record  of  each  man  in  the 
district  is  kept  for  both  military  conscription  and  re- 
serve, as  well  as  criminal  vigilance  purposes.  If  there 
was  anything  in  that  record  which  would  cause  the 
questor  to  think  that  one  of  our  party  should  be  refused 
permission  to  depart,  he  would  not  issue  the  passport, 
and  the  emigrant  could  not  leave  the  country,  as  each 
person  must  have  a  passport  in  which  is  an  identifying 
description  of  the  bearer  so  complete  as  to  make  an 
exchange  of  passports  impossible  with  the  careful 
scrutiny  which  is  given  them  by  the  Italian  police  of- 
ficials in  Naples. 

As  things  fell  out,  none  of  our  party  were  refused 
the  very  necessary  passport  except  myself.  The  ac- 
curacy of  the  Italian  system  is  shown  by  this.  I  was 
refused  because  they  had  no  record  of  me;  and  my 
birth-certificate  was  returned  as  irregular,  and  the  local 
police  would  have  arrested  me  if  I  had  persisted  in 
trying  that  method. 

Now,  all  of  this  goes  to  prove  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant facts  in  connection  with  Italian  emigration: 
that  the  questura  of  each  district  is  slowly  and  effec- 
tually clearing  the  district  of  its  criminal  class  by 
dumping  the  lot  into  North  and  South  America,  the 
most  dangerous  coming  to  the  United  States  as  the 
best  field  for  their  further  operations. 

Here  is  the  syllogism: 

Since  American  police  records  and  prison  statistics, 
especially  those  of  the  United  States  secret  service, 


Giacomo  Marini,  the  Municipal  Secretary — Nicola  Squad- 
rito  at  Work  (Carme/o  Merlino  at  the  right) 


THE   SICILIAN   COUNTRYSIDE  115 

show  large  and  increasing  numbers  of  Italian  criminals 
in  this  country; 

And  since  the  mass  of  these  can  enter  only  by 
immigration; 

And  since  the  immigrant  must  have  a  passport  from 
the  chief  of  his  local  police  district; 

And  since  every  criminal's  record  is  kept  in  the  dis- 
trict in  which  he  was  born,  and  he  must  go  there  to 
get  the  birth-certificate  on  which  he  gets  his  passport, — 

Then  these  thousands  of  passports  issued  annually 
to  criminals  are  given  by  chiefs  of  police  who  know 
the  records  of  the  men  who  are  receiving  them,  and 
are  thus  deliberately  ridding  their  districts  of  them  to 
save  themselves  trouble  and  increase  their  reputation 
for  efficiency. 

That  those  secret  instructions  which  are  issued  from 
Rome  to  the  chief  of  each  district  advise  any  such 
procedure  I  do  not  believe.  They  do  advise,  so  I  have 
been  reliably  informed,  that  passports  be  not  issued  to 
prostitutes  easy  of  detection,  or  to  persons  over  forty- 
five  not  accompanied  by  sons,  inasmuch  as  both 
classes  are  very  nearly  sure  to  be  turned  back  and  to 
become  a  matter  of  expense  to  the  government.  That 
is  the  bugaboo  of  Italian  statesmen, — expense. 

In  my  own  case  I  knew  I  would  have  no  difficulty 
concerning  my  passport  until  I  came  to  the  gate  in  the 
police-office  in  Naples;  then  I  must  have  a  passport 
either  American  or  Italian.  Any  chance  of  getting  an 
Italian  one  had  been  quickly  shattered;  and  yet,  if  I 
went  on  the  ship's  manifest  as  an  American  I  would 
not  be  entering  the  United  States  in  the  desired  r61e. 
The  solution  of  the  difficulty  was  not  reached  till  we 
were  in  Naples. 

When  Antonio  and  the  others  had  their  passports, 


n6    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

then  the  tickets  were  issued  to  them  by  the  agents,  and 
not  before,  the  lot  being  returned  to  Gualtieri  by  post. 
Now  there  was  no  turning  back.  Camela  began  to 
waver,  and  hourly  there  was  some  new  dread  to  suf- 
fuse her  eyes  with  tears. 

One  day  Antonio  Nastasia's  father  went  to  Messina, 
taking  some  of  the  money  which  he  had  labored  hard 
as  a  tinsmith  and  sheet-iron  worker  to  accumulate, 
and  spent  nearly  all  of  it  in  buying  clothes  for  little 
Antonio  to  wear.  Curro  spent  a  month's  wages  on  a 
new  suit.  Giunta's  relatives  prepared  him  a  consider- 
able wardrobe,  and  altogether  nearly  half  as  much  as 
was  needed  to  pay  the  passage  of  the  entire  party  was 
spent  in  buying  Italian  clothes  to  wear  to  America. 
The  senselessness  of  this  proceeding  is  plain  when  it 
is  said  that  few  of  these  new  clothes  were  worn  after 
the  first  day  or  two  in  the  States. 

Something  else  equally  ill-advised  was  the  making 
of  huge  trunks  by  Nicola  Squadrito  and  others,  in 
which  the  families  of  the  departing  ones  packed 
quantities  of  every  conceivable  sort  of  supply,  just  as 
if  the  voyagers  were  going  to  a  new,  wild  land  to 
begin  life  as  best  they  could.  Despite  the  protestations 
of  Antonio,  my  wife  and  myself,  Camela,  crammed 
into  huge  boxes  two  sets  of  heavy  mattresses  with  all 
the  accompanying  bedding;  large  cans  of  pomidoro ; 
olive  oil;  sticks  on  which  dried  figs  were  impaled; 
flasks  of  wine;  forms  of  cheese;  old  clothes;  and  cook- 
ing-utensils, many  of  which  were  new;  and  Concetta 
Fomica's  mother  repeated  the  performance.  Enough 
excess  baggage,  freight  and  customs  duty  were  paid, 
before  we  were  through,  on  these  big  encumbrances 
to  replace  the  whole  lot  twice  over  in  America. 

The  last  days   were  at  hand.     We  were  to  leave 


THE   SICILIAN   COUNTRYSIDE  117 

on  Tuesday  before  dawn.  On  Saturday  afternoon  a 
request  came  from  an  old  woman  up  the  valley  that  we 
see  her — she  being  unable  to  come  to  us — before  we 
departed.  As  we  followed  the  stony  torrente  path  to 
her  home,  her  story  was  told  to  us.  Twenty-three 
years  ago,  when  she  was  a  bride  of  little  more  than  a 
year  and  a  mother  but  a  month,  her  husband  had  gone 
to  America,  the  first  man  to  emigrate  from  all  that 
region,  nearly  eighteen  years  before  Antonio  Squadrito 
and  the  others  had  started  the  flood.  She  had  received 
one  letter  in  which  he  said  he  had  changed  his  name 
to  Frank  Smith,  as  nobody  had  any  patience  with  his 
Italian  name.  She  never  heard  from  him  after  that, 
and  after  her  one  boy  died  she  continued  to  live  alone 
in  the  little  house  Francesco  had  built  for  her  and 
waited  for  Francesco's  return.  For  a  living  she  worked 
in  the  fields  in  summer,  and  in  the  early  autumn  in  the 
vineyards  and  the  lemon,  olive,  and  orange  orchards. 

We  found  her  spinning  with  the  old  distaff  in  the  sun- 
shine before  her  door.  She  set  before  us  such  humble 
hospitality  as  her  hut  afforded,  and  then  told  us  she 
wanted  us  to  begin  a  search  in  America  for  a  Frank 
Smith,  and  she  desired  to  turn  over  her  savings,  thirty- 
two  lire  ($6),  to  defray  the  expenses.  She  could  not 
understand  why  we  would  not  take  it.  It  may  be 
that  these  lines  will  fall  beneath  the  eye  of  a  man  who 
long  since  left  all  his  Italianism  behind  him  and  is  now 
a  thoroughgoing  American  and  no  longer  Francesco. 
If  so,  I  bid  him  remember  that  there  is  a  faithful 
woman  waiting  for  him  in  the  Sicilian  hills. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  DEPARTURE 

AS  the  sun  was  sinking  this  Saturday,  the  bells 
in  the  tower  of  the  principal  church  began  an 
unwonted  clangor,  and  I  was  told  that  the 
Squadrito  relatives  had  paid  for  a  special 'service  at 
vespers  for  the  safe  journey  and  prosperity  of  our  party. 
As  we  wound  along  our  way  to  the  village  we 
could  see  little  groups  of  people,  some  in  holiday 
dress,  and  others,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  clothes 
in  which  they  left  the  fields,  the  wine-presses, 
the  cheese-shops,  the  smithies  and  the  orchards.  As 
we  entered  the  square  we  met  one  of  the  priests,  a 
benign  old  man,  one  of  the  truest  and  best  types  of 
the  sincere  rural  clergy  I  have  ever  seen.  After  taking 
a  pinch  of  snuff,  he  offered  the  box  to  me  with  a 
quizzical  smile,  knowing  full  well  the  un-Americanism 
of  snuff.  There  was  a  hasty  exchange  of  compli- 
ments and  well-wishes,  then  he  passed  on  to  the 
sacristy. 

Jules  Breton  has  caught  and  put  on  canvas,  more 
than  once,  the  spirit  of  peasant  piety  which  pervaded 
that  vespers;  the  air  of  restful,  provincial,  old-world 
religious  fixity,  breathing  through  the  richly  colored 
and  wonderfully  picturesque  scene  in  that  ancient 
church. 

Around  the  tallow-encrusted  base  of  the  figure  of 
San  Francesco,  the  patron  saint  of  the  village,  flared  the 
great  yellow  candles.     A  few  glimmered  on  the  altar. 


THE   DEPARTURE  119 

The  figure  stood  on  a  pedestal  a  little  to  one  side  of 
the  centre  of  the  church.  To  the  left,  kneeling  on 
the  worn  stones  of  the  floor,  or  sitting  on  tiny  rush- 
bottomed  chairs,  were  the  closely  grouped  women, 
some  few  in  the  coveted  black-lace  prayer-shawls, 
but  the  mass  in  the  solid-colored  commoner  ones, 
drawn  over  the  head  and  spreading  out  into  a  cone 
around  the  kneeling  or  sitting  figure.  These  shawls, 
dark  red,  green,  or  yellow,  treasured  among  the  poor, 
made  that  night  in  the  candle-light  a  softened  color- 
scheme  that  is  indescribable.  To  the  right  were  the 
men  and  boys,  clad  for  the  most  part  in  the  baggy 
homespun  worn  in  the  fields,  though  here  and  there 
some  villager  boasted  a  suit  from  the  tailor's  hands. 

As  we  entered,  an  old  man  with  furrowed  face, 
horn  spectacles  and  raucous  voice,  and  a  slender, 
Raphael-faced  boy,  both  in  vestments,  were  chanting 
from  well-thumbed  books  held  into  the  light  of  the 
candles  about  the  saint's  figure.  Overhead  in  the 
choir  the  old  organ  toiled  uncertainly  through  the  mu- 
sic of  the  service,  and  ever  and  anon  the  boy  took 
up  and  rang  the  tinkling  silver  bell. 

His  clear,  superb  soprano  voice  was  in  fine  contrast 
with  that  of  the  elder  singer,  but  the  whole  scene,  the 
portion  of  the  service  at  the  altar,  the  muffled  murmur 
of  the  people  repeating  the  forms,  the  rustle  and  stir 
as  they  knelt  or  rose,  the  shifting  of  the  shadows  on 
the  wall,  was  all  so  strange,  almost  barbaric,  yet  so 
harmonious  and  beautiful  that  its  very  detail  was 
evasive. 

When  the  service  was  ended,  the  people,  without 
haste  or  without  form,  gathered  around  the  priest 
while  he  christened  a  tiny  wailing  infant,  held  up  by 
the    midwife,   with    the    proud    father    at  her  side. 


120    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

They  named  it  Giuseppe.  Yet  another  to  join  the 
millions  of  Giuseppes,  Giacomos  and  Giovannis! 

As  we  left  the  church,  the  father  of  the  child  fol- 
lowed us  and  bade  us  come  to  his  house,  where  the 
christening  was  being  celebrated.  Through  the  dark, 
narrow  streets  we  wended  our  way  to  the  other  end 
of  the  town,  climbed  the  stone  stairs  to  an  over- 
crowded upper  room,  and  spent  a  politely  sufficient 
length  of  time  eating  anise  cakes  and  drinking  sweet 
wine. 

With  the  tact  of  womankind,  my  wife  had  brought 
some  trinkets  of  American  origin  as  a  gift  for  the 
child,  whereat  the  assemblage  beamed  its  appreciation, 
and  just  before  we  left  the  father  said  to  me  aside,  as 
if  it  was  a  secret  he  was  keeping  from  his  wife:  "  If  I 
can  save  twenty  more  lire,  the  next  one  will  be  born 
in  Pittsburg,  praise  the  Holy  Mother." 

At  home  all  the  favored  neighbors  and  relatives  had 
gathered  for  a  dance.  The  large  room  on  the  ground 
floor  of  the  Casa  Squadrito  was  ringed  around  with  a 
double  row  of  guests.  Whole  families  sat  together, 
on  the  stairway  were  seated  the  youngsters  already 
drowsy;  crowding  around  the  wide  door  opening  into 
the  street  were  the  unbidden,  but  none  the  less  inter- 
ested and  curious.  The  head  of  the  Mannino  family, 
weary  with  the  labors  of  his  sixty  years  and  the 
fatigue  of  a  stiff,  home-laundered  collar,  was  nodding 
before  the  music  struck  up,  occasionally  raising  his 
head  to  blink  at  the  light  solemnly  and  to  make  sure 
none  of  the  young  men  were  unduly  near  his  daughter, 
the  heiress  of  his  hard-got  wealth. 

Every  one  who  had  any  heavy  gold  rings,  bracelets 
or  brooches,  or  any  of  the  pretentious  gold-mounted 
strands  of  old  coral,  which  are  handed  down  so  care- 


THE   DEPARTURE  121 

fully  from  mother  to  daughter,  had  them  on,  for  a  dis- 
play of  gold  ornaments  is  a  sure  sign  of  rural  social 
distinction.  Feet  that  were  rarely  shod  were  now 
encased  in  scarpi  made  by  Carmelo  Merlino  and  his 
fellow  craftsmen  in  the  village,  and  dress  among 
women  in  the  throng  varied  from  a  department  store 
ready-made  cloth  gown  sent  home  from  America  to  a 
ragged  working  frock,  the  wearer  of  which  kept  her 
shoeless  and  stockingless  feet  shyly  tucked  out  of 
sight. 

All  were  awaiting  our  arrival,  for  Antonio,  who  was 
with  us,  was  host  as  well  as  chief  musician.  A  home- 
made acetylene  lamp,  of  the  blacksmith  brother's  con- 
triving, was  lighted  and  set  high  up  on  a  bracket, 
throwing  every  object  in  the  room,  even  to  the  boys 
perched  in  the  transom,  into  sharp  relief.  The  mando- 
lins and  guitars  hanging  on  the  wall  were  taken  down, 
and  with  a  skilful,  brilliant  prelude — for  he  is  an  ex- 
cellent mandolin-player — Antonio  swept  into  one  of  the 
stirring,  if  monotonous  time-honored  tarantelle  airs. 

Even  though  eyes  were  dancing  in  young  faces  all 
around  the  room,  all  were  too  shy  to  take  the  floor  till, 
Giovanina  and  Maria  Squadrito  urging  into  acquiescence 
two  of  the  Di  Bianca  girls,  the  four  formed  a  square 
and  began  a  swaying,  pirouetting  movement,  preced- 
ing the  whirling  and  crossing  over  with  the  accompany- 
ing snapping  of  the  fingers  in  imitation  of  the  castanet, 
and  the  smiting  of  the  tambourines.  Round  and  round 
they  whirled,  across  and  back,  first  one  set  of  partners, 
then  the  other,  the  assemblage  applauding  a  little  shyly 
as  yet. 

The  tarantelle  is  called  after  the  black  spiders  about 
Taranto,  whose  dangerous  bites  killed  so  many  people 
early  in  the  fifteenth   century  that   many  odd  cures 


122    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

were  proclaimed,  and  one  that  was  officially  advocated 
was  music  and  dancing.  I  do  not  know  whether  the 
taranielle  dance  which  was  evolved  did  the  spider- 
victims  any  good,  but  a  fanatical  wave  of  dancing 
swept  over  the  peninsula  and  the  surrounding  island, 
and  the  tarantelle  became  a  fixture  among  the  folk- 
customs  of  the  southern  provinces. 

When  the  young  girls  were  weary,  an  effort  was 
made  to  get  the  young  men  out  and  into  action,  but  all 
of  them  seemed  to  be  in  the  throes  of  a  monstrous  diffi- 
dence. Little  Giovanni  Squadrito,  Jr.,  and  his  small 
brother  Tono  were  not  thus  afflicted,  and  dragged  out 
the  Di  Bianca  boy,  a  handsome  fellow,  dressed  in  the 
best  Roman  fashion,  and  another  youngster  who, 
though  a  child  in  years,  had  massive  work-scarred 
hands.  The  four  gave  an  exhibition  of  dancing  that 
was  delightful  indeed,  and  when  Giovanni  and  Tono 
went  skipping  about,  their  hobnailed  shoes  scratching 
and  clattering  on  the  tiles,  their  mother's  face  beamed 
with  real  pride.  Although  very  weary  with  a  hard 
day's  work  preparing  for  the  departure,  she  was  among 
the  brightest  and  merriest  of  the  company. 

Then  Nicola,  the  blacksmith,  and  the  shoemaker 
steamship  agent,  persuaded  a  third  loutish  youth  to 
take  the  floor,  but  a  fourth  dancer  was  lacking.  At 
the  instant  when  the  last  of  the  other  men  had  refused 
to  take  the  floor  as  yet,  the  village  butcher  appeared  in 
the  door  and  was  hailed  with  acclaim  by  those  who 
knew  his  terpsichorean  gifts.  He  glided  into  his  place 
on  the  tiles,  drew  tighter  the  knot  in  his  neckerchief, 
ran  his  hand  through  his  Saturday-night  stubble  of 
beard,  tossed  his  hat  to  a  friend  and  entered  upon  the 
most  startling,  dashing,  withal  graceful  and  self-con- 
tained  feats   in  dance  movements  I  have  ever  seen. 


THE  DEPARTURE  123 

He  was  on  his  tiptoes  the  greater  part  of  the  time  and 
gave  a  perfect  reproduction  of  the  traditional  dance. 

Then  something  happened  that  is  rare — the  men  and 
women  danced  together,  waltzing;  and  when,  after  a 
number  of  varied  dances,  tarantelle  and  square,  a 
dance  by  the  old  folks  was  called  for,  the  first  person 
to  respond  was  Mrs.  Squadrito.  In  vain  the  people  of 
his  own  age  endeavored  to  get  the  slumber-smitten 
Mannino  on  his  feet.  At  last  Giovanina,  who  had 
been  dancing  almost  constantly,  filled  the  vacant  place 
among  the  elder  people,  and  the  music  broke  forth  once 
more.  1  caught  my  wife's  eyes  turned  to  me  in 
amazement,  and  1  replied  in  kind.  Caterina  Squadrito, 
with  fifty-five  years  of  hard  labor  and  the  bearing  and 
rearing  of  ten  children  behind  her,  danced  a  long  round 
of  the  tarantelle  with  an  ease,  grace  and  abandon 
which  put  to  shame  the  efforts  of  her  youngest 
daughter.  When  she  was  gyrating  and  swaying  in 
the  middle  of  the  floor,  with  all  the  mass  of  people 
about  keeping  time  to  the  music,  laughing  and  ap- 
plauding, that  room  presented  a  picture  which  I  shall 
never  forget. 

Not  long  after  this  the  mothers  who  were  holding 
their  sleeping  children  in  their  arms  grew  too  weary 
of  the  burdens  and  started  for  home.  The  others 
made  haste  to  follow  and  filed  by  us,  bowing  formally 
as  they  offered  their  hands,  wishing  us  good-night 
and  bon  riposo. 

Sunday  morning  bright  and  early  the  entire  family 
began  that  weekly  process  of  cleaning  and  dressing  up 
which  is,  I  believe,  general  in  all  rural  districts  of 
Christian  countries.  Little  Ina  was  arrayed  in  a  pretty 
little  white  dress,  with  a  long  white  veil,  and  on  her 
head  was  set  a  wreath  of  artificial  leaves  and  white 


124    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

flowers.  Going  by  in  the  street  were  others.  It  being 
her  hist  Sunday,  all  of  her  little  friends  put  on  their 
festa  dress  in  her  honor,  and  a  procession  of  the  chil- 
dren was  held  from  a  church  in  another  quarter  of  the 
village  to  the  one  on  the  square. 

In  the  afternoon  Camela  took  little  Ina  by  the  hand 
and  set  off  for  some  place  by  herself.  I  noticed  that  a 
sort  of  solemnity  pervaded  the  household;  that  she 
was  crying  as  she  went;  that  no  one  offered  to  ac- 
company her;  and  that  she  carried  a  large  bouquet  of 
flowers.  I  soon  learned  that  she  had  climbed  the  hill 
behind  the  town  to  the  graveyard  on  its  summit,  to 
spend  the  last  hours  she  could  ever  spend  beside  the 
graves  of  her  father  and  her  mother. 

There  were  renewed  streams  of  visitors  later  in  the 
day,  and  at  night  a  pleasant  gathering  at  the  home  of 
the  Giuntas,  where  we  were  shown,  among  other 
things,  a  very  fine  collection  of  old  jewelry,  inherited 
by  our  hostess  from  an  aunt.  In  this  company  there 
were  fewer  people,  and  they  were  more  select  as 
village  society  goes  than  the  large  gathering  at  the 
Squadritos'  the  night  before.  Antonio,  being  very 
popular  in  the  village,  and  quite  democratic  despite 
his  prosperity,  had  asked  humble  and  pretentious 
alike  to  his  home,  and  neither  caste  gave  a  sign,  such  as 
they  would  have  given  on  the  street,  that  they  were 
not  of  the  same  strata.  There  are  some  very  fine  and 
delicate  things  in  Italian  social  customs.  Before  we 
left  we  were  bidden  to  a  little  garden  party  which 
Mrs.  Giunta  had  planned  for  us  on  the  afternoon  of 
the  next  day.  It  was  to  be  held  on  a  scrap  of  an  estate 
owned  by  the  family,  situated  up  the  torrente  a  short 
distance. 

That  night,  after  we  had  returned  home,  we  were 


Ina  and  Her  Friends  in  Procession  to  the  Church  for  Fare- 
well Blessings 


THE   DEPARTURE  125 

serenaded  by  a  troupe  of  the  village  male  vocalists, 
who  wandered  about  until  near  dawn.  The  boy, 
Salvatore  Vazzana,  whom  I  have  mentioned  as  singing 
in  the  church,  sang  "Luna,  O  Luna,"  with  a  triple 
guitar  accompaniment.  The  serenaders  were  then 
standing  in  the  white  moonlight  at  a  point  down  by 
the  torrente  wall,  so  that  in  the  stillness  the  clear, 
sweet  voice  and  the  throbbing,  twanging  compagna- 
menio  carried  to  every  part  of  the  town  and  came  back 
faintly  from  the  farther  hills. 

The  Giuntas  are  a  large  family.  All  the  present 
heads  of  separate  households  are  the  children  of  one 
aged  woman,  still  living  in  Gualtieri,  who  has  given 
birth  to  twenty-two,  all  told.  Most  of  these  are  living, 
and  nearly  all  have  prospered.  One  is  the  only  man 
in  Italy  who  can  stop  a  government  train,  even  the 
Brindisi  express,  in  any  spot  beside  the  track  where 
he  may  appear.  He  shows  his  badge  as  inspector- 
general,  and  the  train  pulls  up  and  takes  him  on.  This 
attribute  was  related  to  us  by  every  fresh  group  of 
people  we  met  in  the  community,  and  he  is  considered 
by  them  to  be  a  very  wonderful  man  indeed.  Our 
host,  on  the  Sunday  evening  before  mentioned,  is  one 
of  the  few  men  who  own  land  about  Gualtieri  or  in  the 
district  controlled  by  the  Duke  of  Avarna. 

Monday  afternoon  he  and  his  wife  and  one  or  two 
other  guests  called  for  us  at  the  house,  and,  accom- 
panied by  Antonio,  Giovanina,  Maria,  Camela,  little 
Ina,  Giovanni,  Jr.,  and  Tono,  we  walked  over  the  tor- 
rente  path,  in  the  blazing  sun,  to  the  gate  of  one  of  his 
farms  of  garden  size.  At  the  gate  we  met  his  brother, 
the  village  doctor,  bound  ahorse  to  see  some  pa- 
tients higher  up  in  the  mountains.  After  looking 
over  the  splendidly  cultivated  place  and  inspecting  the 


126    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

irrigation  devices,  very  old  and  clumsy,  but  none  the 
less  effective,  we  sat  down  to  a  repast  of  fruits  of 
more  sorts  than  I  can  remember  and  name.  The 
photograph  of  the  party  in  the  garden  tells  its  own 
story.  If  all  landowners  in  Italy  dealt  as  mercifully 
with  their  tenants  as  our  host  appeared  to  deal  with 
his  people,  there  would  be  a  different  story  to  tell  of 
southern  Italy  to-day. 

Monday  evening  was  a  time  of  turmoil.  First  of  all 
the  great  mass  of  trunks  was  got  off  to  the  station 
before  dark.  Then  those  who  had  delayed  till  the  last 
minute  to  bring  messages  for  friends  and  to  bid  us 
farewell  appeared.  I  took  all  the  messages,  but  drew 
the  line  at  presents  for  relatives  in  Missouri,  especially 
twenty-pound  forms  of  cheese  and  five-gallon  cans  of 
olive  oil.  In  the  Squadrito  household  there  was  too 
much  excitement  for  great  grief,  only  now  and 
then  one  of  the  members  would  break  out  with  a  wail 
and  throw  his  or  her  arms  around  some  one  of  those 
who  were  to  go.  By  eleven  o'clock  everything  was 
packed  up,  and  Antonio  mandatorily  dismissed  all  the 
neighbors  and  sent  everybody  to  bed.  As  the  silence 
of  the  outer  night  crept  into  the  house,  there  became 
audible  the  sobbing  of  the  poor  old  mother  as  she  lay 
thinking  of  the  near  separation  from  her  own  flesh 
and  blood. 

The  heads  of  the  weary  and  worn  seemed  scarcely 
to  have  touched  their  pillows  before  awakening  voices 
rang  in  the  house  and  street,  the  feeling  of  dread,  chill 
exhaustion  and  discomfort  that  goes  with  sleep-break- 
ing at  one  o'clock  seemed  to  rest  numbingly  on  every 
one.  The  tumultuous  grief  of  the  night  before  had 
given  place  to  a  sort  of  hushed  woe.  A  short  time  to 
dress,  a  bite  to  eat,  then  into  the  dark,  narrow  streets 


THE  DEPARTURE  127 

with  sleep-heavy  eyes,  to  meet  a  crowd  of  hundreds 
come  to  see  the  party  off.  It  is  wonderful  how  little 
noise  that  concourse  made  as  it  moved  out  of  the 
square,  over  the  ancient  bridge,  to  the  beginning  of  the 
mountain  road. 

The  parting  with  the  mother  and  sisters  occurred 
at  the  door  of  the  Squadrito  home.  The  mother  was 
so  overcome  with  her  sorrow  that,  shaken  with  dry 
sobs  and  murmuring  broken  blessings,  her  daughters, 
unable  to  speak  themselves  from  weeping,  loosened 
her  arms  from  about  Antonio  and  Camela  and  bore 
her  to  her  couch. 

At  the  edge  of  the  village  a  group  of  donkeys  was 
in  readiness.  Here  the  crowd  paused.  Not  more  than 
seventy-five  elected  to  walk  the  seven  miles  to  the 
station  and  back,  and  there  were  few  relatives  among 
them.  Antonio's  father  was  as  completely  broken 
down  as  if  he  was  giving  his  favorite  son  and  the 
others  to  the  grave,  instead  of  their  departing  for  a 
happy  land. 

It  was  with  difficulty  that  those  natural  leaders 
among  the  people  effected  the  final  separations,  but  at 
last,  in  the  starlight,  the  two  groups  drew  apart  on 
the  highway,  the  cavalcade  with  its  foot  retinue 
ascending  along  the  face  of  the  hill,  the  great,  black 
mass  of  the  crowd  grouped  about  the  end  of  the 
bridge  shouting  farewells.  Some  one  struck  up  a 
farewell  song,  several  voices  joined  in,  among  them 
the  Vazzana  boy's  clear  soprano;  but  one  by  one  they 
broke,  and  soon  the  song  failed  and  ceased;  and  as 
the  procession  turned  the  corner  that  hid  the  town 
from  view  the  long  file  of  those  left  behind  could  be 
dimly  seen  moving  back  to  the  darkened  homes. 

It  were  ill  indeed  not  to  speak  of  "Bella."     The  day 


128    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

before,  when  donkeys  were  being  hired  for  the  ride  to 
the  station,  I  had  been  struck  by  the  gentle  and  affec- 
tionate way  in  which  she  stood  beside  her  owner's 
young  wife,  and  had  marked  her  for  my  own.  Ex- 
perience with  the  army  mule  of  Missouri  extraction  and 
his  despised  cousin,  the  Mexican  burro,  should  have 
made  me  less  trustful. 

For  a  half  hour  we  cantered  along  in  the  dark,  the 
babel  of  talk  all  about  us.  At  the  rougher  places  1  held 
my  camera  carefully  balanced  on  Bella's  neck  in  front 
of  me,  in  order  that  it  be  not  banged  against  projecting 
rocks  or  by  other  laden  beasts  pressing  close  alongside 
at  times.  When  one  wishes  to  urge  a  Sicilian  donkey 
forward,  one  kicks  him  in  the  ribs  and  shouts  high  and 
nasally: 

"Ah— a— a— ah!" 

We  came  to  a  sharp  bend  in  the  road,  where  it  turned 
over  a  high  bridge  crossing  a  deep  ravine.  Bella  heard 
the  braying  of  the  lead  donkey  already  across  the  bridge 
and  on  the  other  side  of  the  ravine,  and  suddenly, 
without  consulting  me,  turned  aside  and  plunged,  like 
a  goat,  from  rock  to  rock  down  into  the  blackness  of 
the  ravine.  I  had  been  in  the  tail  of  the  train,  and  no 
one  missed  me,  I  knew.  She  would  not  be  checked 
on  her  downward  course;  in  fact  I  was  too  busy  cling- 
ing to  the  precious  camera  and  holding  on,  to  attempt 
to  argue  with  her.  The  limbs  of  olive-trees  and  the 
raking  thorns  of  the  mura  swept  us  from  stem  to  stern. 
If  she  knew  where  she  was  going  I  felt  very  glad,  for 
I  certainly  did  not.  High  and  faint  above  me  I  could 
hear  the  voices  of  the  party.  I  was  wondering  what 
my  chances  were  for  getting  out  without  a  broken 
neck,  when  suddenly  my  fair  beast  struck  level  ground, 
and  in  an  instant  more  a  steep  ascent.     All  sounds  to 


THE   DEPARTURE  129 

show  that  the  party  was  still  in  the  vicinity  had  died 
away.  The  donkey  went  up  that  precipitous  slope 
with  an  action  that  seemed  nearly  "hand  over  hand," 
and,  holding  the  strap  of  the  camera  in  my  teeth,  I 
merely  clung  desperately  about  her  neck.  A  stone 
loosened  by  her  hoofs  went  crashing,  down,  down, 
down,  and  a  cold  sweat  broke  out  on  my  brow. 

But  in  a  short  time,  without  one  misstep  or  one  min- 
ute's uncertainty,  she  made  the  climb,  came  out  into  a 
level  open  space,  and  stood  stock  still,  looking  to  the 
left,  and  working  her  ears.  I  bent  down  and  touched  the 
ground  with  my  fingers,  encountering  the  warm,  thick 
dust  of  the  highway,  and  in  a  moment  more  heard  the 
voices  of  our  party  as  they  turned  a  bend.  Bella  had 
taken  a  short  cut  across  the  ravine.  Not  having  missed 
us  they  did  not  wonder  how  we  had  got  so  far  ahead, 
and  I  said  nothing  about  the  matter. 

Soon  we  wound  through  the  slumbering  town  of 
Pagia.  A  head  was  now  and  then  thrust  out  to  mur- 
mur a  sleepy  "Bona  notte,"  and  when  some  one  of  us 
answered,  "We  go  to  America,"  there  was  always  a 
hearty,  "  Bon  viaggio  e  bona  fortuna." 

Just  beyond  the  village  we  heard  something,  en- 
countered often  before,  but  never  under  such  eerie  sur- 
roundings. Somewhere  in  the  paths  higher  up,  a  shrill 
young  voice  raised  a  wild,  plaintive  song,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  first  line  held  the  note  long  drawn  out  and 
rounded,  though  nasal,  while  many  other  voices,  men, 
women  and  children,  struck  in  on  a  major  chord  and  held 
it  as  long  as  they  had  breath.  This  was  repeated 
over  and  over.  It  was  a  band  of  peasants  already  on 
their  way  to  their  distant  work,  singing  in  the  plagal 
modes,  in  the  darkness  and  loneliness  of  the  hills. 


CHAPTER  X 

FROM  SICILY  TO  NAPLES 

IT  was  not  long  before  we  wound  down  to  the  little 
station,  and  day  began  to  break  in  the  east,  turn- 
ing the  cloud  of  vapor  over  Stromboli  into  the 
semblance  of  a  huge  pink  rose  growing  up  out  of  the 
island  volcano.  Many  of  the  people  from  the  country 
about  were  gathered  to  see  their  own  friends  off,  for 
there  was  quite  a  party  by  this  time.  Soon  the  train 
crept  around  the  coast  from  Milazzo  and  brought  up 
with  a  jerk  and  a  blast  of  the  conductor's  horn.  Here 
farewells  were  brief.  1  heard  one  of  the  Socosa  boys' 
father  cursing  the  train  because  it  was  the  agent  of  the 
separation  from  his  son,  and  then  out  of  the  hurly- 
burly  came  a  slamming  of  compartment  doors,  cries  of 
"Prontef  Prontef"  another  blast  of  the  horn,  and 
we  were  hurried  away  to  Messina. 

It  was  at  the  station  that  Antonio's  first  wrestling- 
match  with  the  mountain  of  the  party's  baggage  oc- 
curred. At  Santa  Lucia  there  had  been  abundant  will- 
ing hands  to  pile  it  on  the  train,  and  no  other  baggage 
with  which  to  confuse  it.  Also,  nothing  had  been  said 
about  excess  charges.  At  Messina  it  was  ripped  open 
by  the  city  customs  officials,  then  hustled  from  place 
to  place  till  at  last  it  was  dispatched  to  the  North  Ger- 
man Lloyd  office,  and  Antonio  emerged  from  the  en- 
counter a  dripping  wreck  of  his  former  immaculate 
self.  When  we  next  saw  it,  it  was  piled  into  a  barge, 
and  standing  guard  over  it  was  a  uniformed  govern- 


FROM   SICILY   TO   NAPLES    131 

ment  official  who  begged  piteously  before  he  departed 
for  enough  money  to  buy  his  dinner,  and  was  well 
enough  satisfied  with  thirty  centesimi  (about  six  cents). 

I  have  previously  described  the  operations  of  the 
questura  of  Messina.  Passports  in  hand,  the  entire 
party  joined  the  great  mass  of  people  from  all  parts  of 
eastern  Sicily  crowded  into  the  steamship  broker's  of- 
fice. Here  each  person  was  compelled  to  make  a  dec- 
laration, which  declaration  answers  the  twenty-two 
questions  that  are  propounded  regularly  at  Ellis  Island. 
When  the  Socosa  boys,  in  answer  to  the  question  as 
to  whether  they  had  work  promised  or  not,  said  that 
they  had,  the  agent  advised  them  to  answer  this  ques- 
tion in  the  negative.  When  Giunta  and  Curro  said  they 
expected  no  one  to  meet  them,  they  were  advised  to  get 
some  one,  and  so  on  through  the  group.  The  steam- 
ship broker's  agent,  in  filling  out  the  blanks  of  this  dec- 
laration, thus  fortified  the  emigrant  in  the  weak  places 
of  his  case  for  admission,  and  if  the  emigrant  is  turned 
back  he  has  no  claim  for  damages  against  the  brokers. 
Numbers  of  suits  were  formerly  brought  and  won,  but 
under  the  present  system  none  have  been  successful, 
and  in  cases  where  the  returned  emigrant  is  able  to  pay 
for  the  passage  on  his  deportation  the  broker  can  force 
him  to  do  so. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  I  have  used  the  term  broker 
instead  of  steamship  agent.  The  explanation  will  be  a 
revelation  to  most  people  in  the  United  States,  for  I 
found  not  long  since  that  officials  high  in  the  Bureau  of 
Immigration  were  not  aware  of  the  following  facts, 
which  is  another  bit  of  proof  of  how  weak  our  system 
of  dealing  with  immigration  from  this  side  of  the 
water  is.  The  steamship  company  does  not  book  the 
third-class   passengers.     Emigration   is   promoted  by 


132    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

sub-agents  in  the  villages,  such  as  Carmelo  Merlino  in 
Gualtieri,  who  operate  under  district  agents  such  as 
Colajanni  in  Messina,  who  are  selected,  appointed  and 
bonded  by  the  Italian  government  and  not  by  the  steam- 
ship company.  They  are  responsible  to  the  govern- 
ment and  not  to  the  steamship  company.  They  de- 
liver their  passengers  at  so  much  per  head  to  the  steam- 
ship company  at  the  foot  of  the  plank,  and  a  percent- 
age of  their  receipts  finds  its  way  to  the  government 
treasury.  They  are  required  to  have  their  offices  in 
what  is  called  a  judicial  town,  where  there  is  a  questura 
and  the  operations  of  the  ticket  brokerage  system  and 
the  police  passports  dovetail  nicely. 

The  process  of  clearing  all  papers,  baggage  receipts, 
tickets  to  the  steamer  to  Naples,  tickets  to  America 
from  Naples,  was  passed  through  by  our  party,  and 
then,  it  being  but  little  after  noon  and  the  hour  for  go- 
ing aboard  being  four  o'clock,  they  scattered.  Many 
went  to  homes  of  relatives  in  Messina  for  a  final  visit. 
Several  of  the  boys  spent  unwarrantable  sums  of  their 
precious  money  in  buying  ugly  looking  knives  with 
which  to  face  the  dangers  that  they  had  read  so  much 
about  in  the  papers,  cheap,  worthless  watches,  and 
clothes  that  would  only  be  thrown  away;  and  every- 
where a  group  passed  some  of  those  parasites  of  the 
port  who  prey  upon  emigrants  and  make  an  effort  to 
wheedle  or  swindle  them  out  of  a  bit  of  silver. 

On  my  first  visit  to  Messina  I  had  the  pleasure  of  in- 
timate knowledge  of  the  discovery  of  a  bold  fraud,  and 
the  arrest  and  punishment  of  the  thief.  He  was  a 
man  of  fair  appearance,  who  had  for  three  years  made 
a  practice  of  stopping  emigrants  just  before  they  were 
about  to  go  aboard  the  steamer  by  means  of  the  small 
boats  in  the  harbor,  and  demanding  if  they  had  had 


(< 


DEPARTURE  FROM  GUALT1ERI 

Declaring"  in  the  Messina  Office— Party's  Baggage    on 
Lighter — Friends,  Neighbors  and  Relatives 


FROM   SICILY   TO   NAPLES    133 

their  tickets  stamped  "by  the  American  doctor." 
The  frightened  emigrant,  knowing  that  somewhere  in 
the  process  he  would  encounter  "the  American  doc- 
tor," to  him  an  object  of  dread,  would  reply  that  he 
had  not.  The  party  would  then  be  taken  to  a  small 
office  in  an  alleyway  opening  off  the  water  front  and 
a  stamp  put  on  the  ticket  for  which  the  victims  would 
be  charged  three  francs  sixty,  about  seventy  cents 
each.  Mr.  Charles  M.  Caughy,  the  American  consul 
at  Messina,  caught  this  fellow  and  saw  to  it  that  he 
was  soundly  punished.  Our  party  escaped  with  a 
few  minor  mishaps,  thanks  to  the  vigilance  of  Antonio 
and  myself.  One  of  the  boys  fell  a  victim  to  a  fake 
street  dentist  who  had  a  carriage,  a  set  of  tools  and  a 
professional  air.  He  related  the  sufferings  with  tooth- 
ache experienced  by  emigrants  on  the  Atlantic,  and  ad- 
vised the  extraction  of  all  bad  teeth.  One  old  woman 
from  Catania  had  three  taken  out  at  a  franc  each. 
While  1  was  trying  to  get  a  photograph  of  the  fakir 
one  of  our  boys  got  into  the  carriage,  and  the  dentist 
was  so  eager  to  have  me  get  a  good,  full  view  of  his 
face  that  he  yanked  out  one  of  the  boy's  perfectly 
good  teeth.     I  am  glad  the  film  got  torn. 

We  lunched  in  a  little  restaurant  off  the  Via  Um- 
berto,  entertained  by  really  good  music  from  a  beggar 
violinist  who  was  accompanied  by  a  woman  and  little 
girl,  both  of  them  cursed  by  trachoma. 

We  were  disappointed  in  meeting  the  Papalia  family 
from  Montforte-Spadafora,  in  fact  they  came  on  the 
next  steamer,  and  for  some  reason  Giuseppe  Cardillo's 
father  had  decided  that  Giuseppe  and  his  party  should 
wait;  thus  we  lost  at  the  outset  some  interesting 
members  from  our  group  as  planned. 

I  improved  the  opportunity  to  complete  some  in- 


134    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

vestigations  in  Messina  concerning  the  smuggling  of 
trachomatic  emigrants,  and  will  state  what  I  learned 
in  a  later  chapter,  where  the  information  is  collected. 

The  fine  Navigazione  Generale  steamer  Reina  Mar- 
gherita  was  the  one  on  which  we  were  to  travel  to 
Naples.  She  went  first  to  Reggio  di  Calabrie  to  get 
the  crowd  there  gathered  from  Greece,  Syria,  Turkey, 
Apulia  and  Calabria.  There  were  not  many  of  the 
Orientals,  and  a  large  part  of  them  expected  to  sail  on 
the  Citta  di  Napoli,  of  the  La  Veloce  Line,  leaving 
Naples  before  we  did  on  the  Prin^essin  Irene.  I  went 
over  and  saw  them  come  aboard,  as  some  of  our 
friends  would  be  there. 

Some  gay  parties  came  down  to  the  dock  in  carretas 
and  on  foot,  singing  and  beating  tambourines,  and 
one  of  these  brought  Gaetano  Disalvo,  a  boy  from 
Scilla  going  to  join  his  uncle  in  Buffalo. 

One  of  the  boys  with  Di  Salvo  was  a  lithe  lad  of 
nineteen  who  had  been  a  sword-fisherman,  a  very 
dangerous  occupation  pursued  in  the  midsummer 
months  off  Scilla.  With  old  Francesco  Palmi  was  his 
daughter  Paolina,  a  true  Calabrese  type,  and  one  of 
the  prettiest  girls  of  her  class  we  saw  while  in  Italy. 
She  had  been  a  flower-worker,  and  was  going  to  New 
York  to  marry  a  man  whom  she  had  not  seen  since 
she  was  a  little  girl,  but  who  had  secured  "a  very  fine 
employment  for  her  paying  twenty-eight  lire  ($5.60) 
per  week." 

When  the  steamer  put  back  across  the  Straits  to 
Messina,  there  was  a  grand  rush  to  get  the  emigrants 
and  their  baggage  aboard.  The  boatmen  who  took 
our  party  out,  though  they  had  been  paid  by  the 
steamship  broker,  all  such  things  being  included  in 
the  200-lire  ticket,  demanded  and  succeeded  in  getting 


FROM   SICILY   TO   NAPLES    135 

two  lire  for  their  ferrying.  We  were  in  the  first 
rapids  of  the  systematic  extortion  through  which  the 
poor  emigrant  passes  on  his  way  from  home  to  Ellis 
Island,  where  it  stops  so  suddenly  that  he  is  mystified. 

It  was  a  striking  scene  as  our  last  boat  put  off  from 
the  quay,  leaving  little  Antonio  Nastasia's  father, 
Nicola  Squadrito,  Giunta's  friends  and  a  few  more 
who  had  come  from  Gualtieri,  standing  in  a  weeping 
group  in  the  midst  of  the  many  hundreds,  waving 
hats  and  shouting,  "  Bon  viaggio,  bon  viaggio/" 

It  was  a  rough-and-tumble  fight  to  get  aboard  with 
the  baggage,  and  the  difficulties  were  increased  by  the 
unnecessary  and  purposeless  brutality  of  the  ship's 
stewards.  Here  began  the  blows,  the  jerkings  about 
and  the  hustlings,  which  never  ceased  throughout  the 
whole  process  till  the  poor,  ignorant  people,  driven 
and  herded  like  cattle,  were  in  the  shelter  of  Ellis 
Island. 

There  was  a  brigadier  of  police  aboard,  and  when 
the  women  had  gone  below  into  their  compartment 
and  we  were  trying  to  secure  beds  in  the  men's 
quarters,  he  followed  the  women  and  offered  them 
insults  which  make  my  blood  boil  as  I  think  of  it. 
When  I  learned  of  it  he  had  left  the  ship. 

At  last  we  were  settled  into  our  places  on  the  lumpy 
jute  mattresses  covered  with  coarse,  dirty  bagging, 
which  served  as  the  bedding  in  the  double-tiered  iron 
bunks  arranged  in  blocks  eight  or  nine  wide  in  the 
middle  of  the  ship,  with  supplementary  rows  along 
the  sides. 

No  attempt  was  made  to  feed  us,  and,  anticipating 
such  a  condition,  we  had  fortunately  brought  food 
with  us.  Despite  all  their  discomforts,  the  wilting 
heat  and  the  foul  smells,  I  do  not  remember  ever  hav- 


136    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

ing  seen  a  happier  crowd  of  people.  On  every  hand 
musical  instruments  were  out,  and  groups  were  sing- 
ing or  chattering  like  magpies. 

In  the  dusk  the  beautiful  steamer  glided  out  of  the 
harbor  by  the  scores  of  little  groups  on  the  quay  at 
its  mouth,  and  headed  up  the  Straits  of  Messina  for  the 
Bay  of  Naples,  twelve  hours  away. 

While  we  were  on  the  forecastle  head,  I  noticed 
little  Disalvo  come  up  from  below  with  a  long, 
twisted-up,  slender,  newspaper  in  his  hands.  For  a 
long  time  he  stood  by  the  rail  intently  watching  the 
shore.  When  we  were  off  Scilla  he  lit  a  match  in  the 
shelter  of  a  ventilator  and  lighted  his  improvised  torch, 
and  I  realized  that  he  was  going  to  try  to  signal  his 
friends  on  shore.  I  looked  to  the  land  and  saw  a  light 
moving  up  and  down  near  a  cottage  south  of  the  town 
where  I  knew  he  lived.  But  his  answer  was  a  failure 
and  nearly  a  catastrophe.  The  strong  wind  caught 
the  first  blaze  of  the  paper  and  literally  rent  the  burn- 
ing torch  apart,  sweeping  the  burning  fragments  aft 
the  length  of  the  ship.  Fires  were  narrowly  avoided  in 
two  places,  and  the  first  officer  came  down  from  the 
bridge  and  read  the  horror-smitten  boy  a  terrific  lecture. 

Far  into  the  night  we  lay  en  deck,  dreading  to 
go  below  into  the  reeking  atmosphere  there.  When 
we  did  at  last,  the  tumult  of  crying  babies,  of  people 
who  could  not  sleep  and  so  essayed  to  play  harmon- 
icas and  sing,  was  almost  unbearable.  The  rule  of 
men  and  women  being  separated  had  not  been  en- 
forced, and  so  Antonio  and  I  stayed  near  the  women 
of  our  party  for  their  protection, — not  from  the  other 
passengers,  but  from  the  ship's  people.  At  last  dawn 
came,  and  the  haggard  look  on  my  wife's  face  told  me 
what  she  had  passed  through. 


FROM   SICILY   TO   NAPLES   137 

When  we  went  on  deck  we  were  within  sight  of 
Capri,  and  two  hours  later  we  slid  under  the  shadow 
of  Vesuvius  into  the  beautiful  bay  of  Naples,  and 
when  we  had  snuggled  in  beside  the  Palermo  steamer 
at  the  municipal  quay,  unloading  its  throng  of 
emigrants  before  the  custom-house,  we,  too,  were 
dumped  off  in  the  hot  sun  and  left  for  hours  in  a  broil- 
ing heat  to  await  our  turn  to  be  conducted  to  the 
first  steps  of  that  wonderful  and  interesting  process 
the  emigrant  goes  through  in  Naples. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THROUGH  THE  CITY  OF  THIEVES 

IN  a  half-hearted,  divided-responsibility  sort  of 
way,  the  Italian  government,  the  steamship  com- 
panies and  the  United  States  authorities  endeavor 
to  do  at  Naples,  the  world's  greatest  port  of  emigrant 
embarkation,  what  should  be  done  thoroughly  a  stage 
sooner,  viz.,  to  sort  out  those  who  are  likely  to  be 
turned  back  at  Ellis  Island  and  to  prevent  them  from 
sailing.  How  much  easier,  cheaper  and  more  effective 
to  have  done  it  at  home! 

So  far  as  this  narrative  of  the  experiences  of  my 
wife  and  myself  and  our  family  party  is  concerned,  I 
would  estimate  that  stage  of  the  process  which  was 
reached  at  Naples  as  of  equal  or  greater  importance 
than  the  Ellis  Island  process  proper. 

Before  we  left  our  native  land  to  begin  the  research 
in  Italy,  we  were  under  the  impression  that  emigration 
was  merely  a  matter  of  so  many  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  people  traveling  each  season  from  their  homes 
in  Europe  to  the  nearest  ports,  and  taking  third-class 
passage  to  New  York,  where  they  were  landed  at 
Ellis  Island  and  examined.  That  is  the  American  idea 
of  it, — that  and  no  more  !  That  anything  befell  them, 
other  than  happens  to  traveling  families  in  any  place, 
before  they  reached  Ellis  Island,  never  occurred  to  us. 
The  process  of  birth  certificates,  passports,  declarations, 
and  grouping  by  the  numbers  on  the  ship's  manifest 
was  all  unexpected;  and  here  at  Naples  was  yet  more 


THROUGH  THE  CITY  OF  THIEVES  139 

formality,  and,  looking  back  over  the  whole  trip,  the 
Naples  stage  seems  really  more  interesting  and  surely 
as  important  as  the  Ellis  Island  one. 

The  morning  (30th  of  September)  that  we  arrived 
on  the  Reina  Margherita  from  Messina,  and  debarked 
with  our  baggage  at  nine  o'clock  on  the  quay  before 
the  Capitaneria  del  Porto,  with  no  shelter  from  the  sun 
already  beginning  to  send  down  rays  of  broiling  heat 
and  blinding  whiteness,  we  were  rallied  into  one 
crowd  by  agents  of  the  North  German  Lloyd  broker, 
Vincenzo  di  Luca  fu  Giacomo,  who  stood  at  the  foot 
of  the  gangplank  crying,  "  Germanese  !  Germanese!" 
and  into  another  by  agents  of  the  La  Veloce  Line 
broker,  who  stood  on  the  other  side  and  called, 
"Veloce!     Veloce!" 

Across  the  quay,  directly  opposite  where  the  Reina 
Margherita  had  docked,  lay  the  beautiful  long  gray 
Cilta  di  Napoli,  ready  to  sail  that  day,  and  from  the 
other  side  of  the  Capitaneria  we  could  see  emigrants 
who  were  going  in  her,  pouring  out  of  the  examina- 
tion-rooms in  hundreds,  and  carrying  their  baggage 
aboard.  All  the  third-class  passengers  among  us  who 
were  going  by  the  Veloce  Line  were  quickly  herded 
together,  and  rushed  away  and  put  through  the  pro- 
cess. As  our  steamer  did  not  sail  yet  for  two  days, 
we  were  left  to  wait  while  all  the  Veloce  baggage  was 
passed  through  the  custom-house,  and  then  that  of  all 
the  first  class  from  the  Reina  Margherita,  as  there  is  a 
city  customs  duty  in  Naples  in  addition  to  the  national 
revenue,  and  baggage  is  looked  at  very  carefully  for 
comestibles,  or  anything  that  can  be  eaten  or  con- 
verted into  food-stuffs. 

We  had  had  no  breakfast;  we  had  had  exceedingly 
little  sleep;  the  air  outside  the  bay  had  been  chilling; 


140    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

and  now  we  were  left  huddled  in  the  dust  under  that 
pouring  sun  till  it  was  somebody's  pleasure  to  remove 
us.  A  high  iron  fence  topped  with  spear  pickets 
prevented  our  getting  out,  and  if  we  tried  to  go 
through  the  doorway  into  the  Capitaneria  there  were 
policemen  to  push  us  back.  Despite  the  strict  rules 
of  the  Capitaneria  concerning  any  Neapolitans  being 
allowed  in  among  third-class  passengers  not  yet 
admitted  to  the  port,  or  among  those  passed  for  em- 
barkation, peddlers,  water-sellers,  beggars  and  mendi- 
cant friars  began  to  filter  through  the  Capitaneria  and 
over  the  fence,  until,  even  if  we  were  oppressed  with 
weariness,  heat,  dust  and  hunger,  we  at  least  had 
diversion,  and  were  able  to  buy  warm  water  with  a 
dash  of  licorice  in  it.  One  buxom  young  woman  who 
came  in  with  an  ollah  and  served  all  customers  out  of 
the  same  glass  was  of  a  fine  cheery  type,  and  when 
some  of  the  people  about  us  complained  and  asked 
whether  this  was  what  they  were  to  expect  in  the  way 
of  treatment,  she  would  laugh  and  say: 

"Oh,  do  not  trouble  yourself  because  you  are  weak 
with  weariness  and  have  no  place  to  sit  down  but  the 
dust  in  the  hot  sun.  This  is  heavenly  to  what  you 
will  find  later  on." 

I  heard  her  tell  Camela  and  Concetta  this,  and  the 
effect  was  anything  but  cheering  on  them.  Antonio 
tried  to  comfort  them,  but  he  was  almost  at  his  wits' 
end,  answering  questions  from  all  the  members  of 
our  party  as  to  when  they  were  going  to  get  some- 
thing to  eat,  whether  we  were  to  go  at  once  on  the 
steamer,  whether  or  not  they  looked  "sick  in  the 
eyes,"  and  might  they  open  one  of  the  trunks  to  get  a 
bottle  of  wine,  and  so  on  indefinitely. 

The  begging  friars  were  nearly  all  Franciscans,  and 


THROUGH  THE  CITY  OF  THIEVES  141 

moved  about  the  various  enclosures  among  the  thou- 
sands of  emigrants,  telling  them  that  they  could  best 
ward  off  the  fearful  dangers  of  the  voyage  and  in  the 
new,  wild  land,  America,  by  purchasing  prayer-cards. 
They  got  a  great  deal  of  money  in  this  way. 

It  was  with  keen  disappointment  that  I  saw  a  party 
of  three  persons,  an  old  woman,  her  daughter  and  the 
daughter's  small  boy,  who  were  going  by  the  Citta  di 
Napoli,  brought  off  the  Reina  Margherita  and  hurried 
away  with  the  other  Veloce  people.  I  had  observed 
their  diseased  eyes  the  evening  before,  and  had  warned 
all  of  our  party  to  keep  away  from  them;  but  the 
young  woman  had  made  friends  with  one  of  our 
neighbors,  to  whom  she  confided  the  fact  that  this 
was  her  third  trip  to  Naples  with  her  mother  and 
her  boy.  She  had  tried  twice  before  to  go  to  Amer- 
ica, but  all  had  been  turned  down  on  account  of 
trachoma,  and  sent  back  to  Messina,  where  they  lived. 
Now,  by  arranging  to  perform  that  indefinite  process 
I  heard  so  much  about,  "Pay  some  money  to  some 
people,"  she  fully  expected  to  get  through  at  Naples  and 
to  be  landed  in  New  York.  I  had  planned  to  check  up 
every  step  of  her  process  and  see  if  she  really  did  get 
through  with  the  old  woman  and  the  child;  but  now 
she  was  hustled  away,  and  we  were  left  standing 
helpless.  I  had  the  name  she  gave  to  our  neighbor, 
and  the  address  in  Messina,  but  either  the  neighbor 
was  mistaken  or  the  name  fictitious. 

Soon  after  they  had  gone,  an  old  man  with  a  swarm 
of  young  clerks  appeared,  and,  calling  the  roll  of  the 
party,  issued  tickets  which  were  good  for  daily  rations, 
while  we  were  held  in  Naples,  at  the  North  German 
Lloyd's  contract  restaurant,  the  Trattoria  Retifilero  in 
Via  Lanzieri.    It  was  a  long,  tedious  process,  involving 


142    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

much  argument  and  searching  for  passports,  tickets 
and  papers. 

When  the  old  man  was  finished,  he  and  his  hench- 
men marshaled  the  crowd,  divided  it  off  into  groups 
amid  a  wild  uproar,  and  each  group  of  thirty  or  forty 
followed  one  of  the  young  clerks  into  the  Capitaneria, 
where  they  were  led  before  the  city  customs  officials, 
who  ransacked  their  baggage  for  comestibles.  A 
number  of  the  members  of  our  party  were  intensely 
agitated  over  the  performance,  it  being  their  first  ex- 
perience, and  little  Nastasia,  who  had  wine  and  cheese 
in  his  box,  was  wild  with  fright.  He  was  afraid  he 
would  be  arrested,  or  something  would  happen  that 
would  prevent  his  going. 

A  few  times  before,  I  had  seen  evidences  of  this  fear 
among  others  of  our  party,  and  I  soon  realized  that 
what  makes  the  emigrant  so  meek  in  the  face  of  out- 
rageous brutalities,  so  open  to  the  wiles  of  sharpers,  so 
thoroughly  disconcerted  and  bewildered  in  the  face  of 
an  examination,  is  his  terrible  dread  of  not  being  al- 
lowed to  enter  America.  He  would  as  soon  think  of 
cutting  off  a  hand  as  doing  anything  that  "  would  get 
him  into  trouble." 

When  the  city  customs  officials  were  finished  with 
us,  we  were  passed  through  to  the  front  of  the  Capi- 
taneria, and  to  the  left,  where  the  steamship  broker's 
representatives  were  busy  checking  the  heavy  bag- 
gage. Almost  the  entire  party  was  dependent  on 
Antonio  and  me  to  worry  the  score  of  big  trunks, 
boxes  and  bundles  through,  and,  this  spot  being  just 
as  hot  and  dusty  as  the  other  side  of  the  Capitaneria, 
the  whole  party  was  in  a  deplorable  condition  when 
at  last  we  were  ready  to  be  led  to  our  abiding-place 
for  the  two  nights  we  would  be  in  Naples. 


THROUGH  THE  CITY  OF  THIEVES  143 

Once  outside  the  iron  fence  bounding  the  Capi- 
taneria,  the  group  largely  made  up  of  our  party  strag- 
gled along  under  the  weight  of  their  baggage,  follow- 
ing the  young  clerk  who  piloted  us  along  the  Marina, 
with  its  turmoil  of  commerce,  and  soon  we  turned 
into  the  Vico  di  via  Porta.  Threading  our  way 
through  the  narrow  street,  jammed  with  all  the  life  of 
the  lower  classes,  we  came  at  last  to  the  Albergo  della 
Rosa,  or  Rose  Hotel,  in  the  Lanzieri. 

It  is  one  of  the  many  houses  whose  great  source  of 
income  is  the  housing  of  emigrants  at  fixed  rates  of 
from  one  to  two  lire  per  night.  The  first  floor  was 
occupied  by  shops;  around  the  entrance  were  gathered 
carts  loaded  with  all  sorts  of  wares  from  vegetables  to 
trumpery  combs,  mirrors,  soaps,  baggage-straps, — in 
fact,  all  of  the  things  which  the  poor  emigrant  could 
be  led  to  fancy  he  wanted  for  the  voyage.  The  house 
did  not  look  very  inviting,  and  as  we  hesitated  a 
horde  of  runners  from  other  houses  pounced  upon  us 
and  almost  dragged  us  elsewhere.  Some  of  our  peo- 
ple would  have  gone  if  a  respectable  old  gentleman 
passing  by  and  hearing  the  commotion  had  not  stopped 
and  addressed  us,  saying,  "  Go  to  this  hotel  if  the  com- 
pany sends  you  here,  and  do  not  take  up  with  these 
thieves.  Some  of  the  places  they  recommend  are  of 
a  most  dangerous  character.  Emigrants  are  robbed 
there  constantly." 

I  had  firmly  decided  that  our  party  should  stop  at  the 
Albergo  della  Rosa,  and  contrived  to  persuade  the 
others  in  our  group  not  to  be  influenced  by  the  im- 
portunate Neapolitans. 

The  host — a  short,  unshaven,  bibulous-looking  person 
— appeared,  and  we  were  conducted  to  the  second  and 
third  floors,  and  allowed  to  sort  ourselves  out  into 


144    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

three  large  rooms,  filled  with  single  beds.  All  of  the 
women  and  children  were  given  a  front  room  with 
light  and  air,  and  the  men  took  the  others. 

Here  occurred  an  evidence  of  that  class  feeling 
which  exists  from  the  beggar  up  in  Italy.  There  is  no 
democracy.  By  a  very  natural  process,  with  no  words 
or  discussion,  Nunzio  Giunta,  Antonio  Squadrito, 
Nicola  Curro  and  one  or  two  others,  who  considered 
themselves  members  of  a  better  class  than  our  farmer- 
boys  from  Socosa,  for  instance,  took  the  best  room, 
leaving  the  third,  which  was  dark  and  close,  to  the 
others,  who  accepted  it  without  a  murmur.  In  this 
connection  I  would  note  an  amusing  thing:  Antonio 
never  carried  his  own  baggage  till  he  reached  America, 
nor  did  he  ever  fail  to  protest  when  I  shouldered  mine. 
He  was  afraid  we  should  lose  caste  in  the  eyes  of  the 
people  we  met. 

It  was  not  ten  minutes  after  we  were  indoors,  before 
every  member  of  the  party  was  stretched  out  and 
sound  asleep,  being  simply  exhausted  by  the  strain 
under  which  we  had  been  for  two  days. 

It  was  nearly  six  o'clock  when  the  host  roused 
everybody  to  tell  them  that  if  they  wished  to  take 
advantage  of  the  one  meal  a  day  the  steamship  broker 
was  paying  for,  they  should  be  going  to  the  trattoria. 

It  was  a  subdued  party  that  arrayed  itself,  filed 
down  the  stairs,  and  went  to  its  first  substantial  meal 
since  noon  of  the  day  before.  There  was  less  talking 
done  than  there  had  been  over  anything  since  we 
started  from  Gualtieri. 

At  the  restaurant  we  found  some  hundreds  of 
emigrants  coming  and  going,  and  others  seated  at  the 
tables.  For  a  half  hour  we  waited  until  those  eating 
made    room   enough   for  us,  and  then   we   gathered 


THROUGH  THE  CITY  OF  THIEVES   145 

around  one  of  the  large  tables  arranged  about  the  long 
room,  and  soon  were  served  by  unkempt  waiters  with 
soup  made  with  tomatoes  and  paste,  a  stew  of  meat 
and  vegetables,  the  meat  being  from  portions  of  the 
goat  not  the  most  savory,  melons  and  wine.  Poor 
little  Ina  was  very  hungry  but  very  brave.  She  con- 
fessed, after  we  had  all  been  cheered  and  stimulated 
by  the  meal,  that  she  had  been  afraid  she  would  "faint, 
and  they  would  not  let  a  fainty  girl  go  to  America." 

Nothing  was  of  more  interest  to  me  than  the  rapid 
broadening  of  the  mental  scope  of  the  children  and 
young  folks  in  our  party.  Pretty  Concetta,  in  all  her 
sixteen  years,  had  never  been  away  from  home  before. 
Some  of  the  youths  had  never  been  outside  the  village 
community  of  Gualtieri.  Little  Ina  showed  how  bright 
she  is  and  how  well  she  had  understood  all  the  won- 
ders that  had  been  told  her,  by  refusing  to  be  appalled 
by  the  tremendous  size  and  unheard-of  splendor 
of  Naples,  for  such  the  town,  shabby  and  tumble- 
down as  it  is  in  the  parts  they  had  visited,  seemed  to 
them.  She  took  her  new  experiences  as  a  matter  of 
course. 

We  walked  out  into  the  city  after  supper,  and  Con- 
cetta was  as  nearly  like  a  wild,  frightened  animal  of  the 
forest  as  anything  of  which  I  can  think.  As  1  knew 
the  city  well,  I  piloted  them  to  the  portions  where 
there  would  be  the  most  interesting  sights  in  the  sun- 
set hours  and  the  early  evening.  As  we  were  crossing 
the  Piazza  Borsa,  with  its  busy  traffic  and  many  speed- 
ing electric  cars,  she  clung  to  Camela's  arm,  and  Camela 
clung  to  my  wife.  The  passing  horses  and  cars 
seemed  to  utterly  bewilder  them,  and  when  we  were 
little  more  than  halfway  across,  Camela  and  Concetta 
broke  into  a  wild  run,  and,  despite  my  wife's  resistance, 


146    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

dragged  her  the  remainder  of  the  way  to  the  sidewalk, 
the  last  spurt  being  directly  in  front  of  a  Toretta  train. 
When  we  were  all  safely  assembled  on  the  sidewalk, 
Giovanni  Pulejo,  himself  trembling  all  over,  turned  to 
me  and  said  : 

"Oh,  all  this  noise  makes  my  head  as  big  as  my 
body.     Let  us  go  back  to  the  house." 

In  one  of  the  little  side  streets  Camela  suddenly 
stopped  with  an  exclamation  of  disgust,  and  pointed 
to  some  boys  with  a  plate  of  macaroni.  They  were 
shoveling  it  into  their  mouths  with  their  fingers  in  the 
fashion  that  is  met  with  only  in  Naples. 

After  we  had  passed  through  the  splendid  business 
arcade,  the  Galleria  Umberto,  had  seen  the  Royal 
Palace  and  other  wonders,  we  came  suddenly  to  a 
little  street  which  has  a  peculiar  reputation  in  Naples. 
It  is  the  Vicolo  del  Pallonetto.  Many  years  ago,  when 
both  the  Mafia  and  Camorra  were  flourishing  insti- 
tutions in  Italy,  some  strange  things  happened  in  this 
street. 

It  is  so  steep  that  it  is  paved  with  stones  set  like 
stairs,  and  many  are  the  dead  who  have  been  found 
there  at  dawn.  Now  the  street  is  inhabited  for  the 
most  part  with  honest  people  of  the  Neapolitan  brand 
of  that  virtue,  and  it  has  the  distinction  of  having  sent 
great  numbers  of  street-piano  Italians  to  America. 
"The  dago  with  the  monkey"  was  the  pioneer  of 
Italian  emigration  to  the  United  States  ;  then  came  the 
lemon-seller,  who  took  to  the  banana  and  peanut  busi- 
ness. Some  people  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that 
bananas  and  peanuts  have  their  home  in  Italy.  An  Ital- 
ian fruit-vender  whom  I  know  tells  me  he  has  people 
ask  him  nearly  every  day  whether  he  has  any  Italian 
bananas.     The  truth  is  that  both  bananas  and  peanuts 


The  Storied  Vicolo  del  Pallonetto  in  Naples 


THROUGH  THE  CITY  OF  THIEVES   147 

are  as  rare  in  Italy  as  alligator  pears  in  New  York. 
Several  house-owners  in  this  street  are  retired  hand- 
organ  players  who  have  made  substantial  fortunes  in 
America  in  other  years. 

As  we  came  through  the  street  with  our  trailing, 
staring,  interested  party,  scores  of  persons  with  rela- 
tives in  America  came  out  of  the  houses  or  called  down 
from  the  balconies,  desiring  that  we  look  up  their 
friends  in  the  States  and  take  them  messages.  Lest 
some  who  read  these  lines  may  find  in  them  fresh 
cause  to  raise  the  Mafia  bugaboo,  I  will  repeat  an  ear- 
lier assertion:  while  it  is  no  use  denying  that  once  the 
Mafia  was  a  large,  well-organized  and  most  murderous 
society,  and  that  for  a  long  period  it  built  up  a  record 
of  atrocious  crimes,  extortions  coupled  with  murders, 
the  stringent  measures  adopted  in  Italy  have  sup- 
pressed it  so  effectually  that  actual  Mafia  members  are 
only  a  few  middle-aged  or  old  men,  who  keep  their 
allegiance  only  for  fear  of  their  old  comrades.  No  man 
dares  raise  his  voice  to-day  and  call  himself  "  Mafite" 
except  in  America,  and  here  the  man  who  does  it  is 
a  common  criminal,  trading  on  the  terrors  of  the  old 
bloody  band. 

This  country  was  greatly  roused  over  the  operations 
of  a  secret  society  in  New  Orleans,  and  much  was 
written  and  said  about  the  Mafia  at  the  time.  It  is  true 
some  of  the  men  were  old  Mafiti,  but  I  have  the  word 
of  an  Italian  secret-service  official  of  high  rank  that  the 
band  was  a  purely  independent  organization.  About 
a  year  ago  a  terrible  murder  was  committed  by  Italians 
in  New  York,  and  there  was  not  one  of  the  great  lead- 
ing dailies  and  the  reviewing  periodicals  but  pro- 
nounced it  an  outbreak  of  a  Mafia  band.  A  number 
of  men  were  arrested,  with  strong  proof  against  them, 


148    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

and  they  were  labeled  "The  Band,"  and  connections 
with  other  Mafia  bands  sought  for  in  Buffalo,  Chicago, 
New  Orleans,  and  elsewhere.  Very  serious  editors 
discussed  "the  growth  of  the  Mafia  in  America"  and 
"the  frightful  influx  of  criminal  Italians."  The  whole 
had  considerable  influence  on  the  Shattuc  bill.  The 
truth  of  the  matter  is  that  "The  Band  "  was  merely  a 
small  gang  of  counterfeiters,  most  of  them  men  of 
such  undesirable  qualities  that  they  would  never  have 
been  able  to  gain  admission  to  the  Mafia;  and  they 
were  no  more  Maftti,  strictly  speaking,  than  are  the 
members  of  the  American  Board  of  Foreign  Missions. 
I  repeat,  "the  Mafia  in  America"  is  nothing  but  a 
bugaboo.  Men  who  belong  to  small  criminal  gangs 
used  the  word  as  a  means  of  extortion,  and  the  mys- 
terious murders  which  happen  frequently — always  with 
Italians  as  the  victims — are  private  vendettas.  When 
we  consider  that  the  Sicilian  considers  it  just  as  much 
his  inherent  right  to  stab  a  man  who  has  done  him  a 
great  wrong  as  the  American  Southerner  to  lynch  a 
negro  who  has  turned  beast,  and  that  criminal  Italians 
in  America  work  astounding  injustices  on  their  gullible 
countrymen,  it  is  a  wonder  that  there  are  not  more 
mysterious  murders  than  there  are.  The  deportation 
from  America  of  about  six  shiploads  of  Italian  parasites 
who  live  on  the  labor  of  their  fellows  would  put  an 
end  to  all  such  things  in  this  country.  The  average 
Italian  living  in  America  would  rather  go  to  prison  for 
five  or  ten  years  than  be  deported.  And  many  an 
Italian  gladly  goes  to  prison  to  be  maintained  while 
he  learns  a  trade  and  how  to  read  and  write  English. 

It  seemed  strange  indeed  to  be  leading  a  company  of 
honest  country  folk  along  a  street  so  noted  for  its  dark 
crimes,  but  in  the  hearty  greetings  and  hospitality  of  the 


THROUGH  THE  CITY  OF  THIEVES   149 

people  about  us  in  the  Pallonetto  there  was  no  sign  of 
the  blackness  of  that  other  day. 

It  was  most  amusing  when  I  piled  the  whole  crowd 
on  a  car  bound  out  toward  Possilipo,  past  the  villas  on 
the  northern  rim  of  the  wonderful  bay.  I  had  let 
many  cars  go  by  till  I  saw  one  coming  that  was  nearly 
empty,  and  when  we  were  all  in  we  nearly  filled  it. 
The  boys  all  wanted  to  sit  together.  They  were  in 
high  glee,  and  crowded  nine  into  one  seat,  to  the  dis- 
may of  the  conductor  and  the  entertainment  of  the 
other  passengers.  The  conductor  stopped  the  car  and 
straightened  them  out,  distributing  them  into  empty 
places.  When  the  car  was  going  at  full  speed  I  looked 
back  and  saw  that  every  one  was  holding  on  to  the  seat 
for  dear  life,  and  watching  Antonio  and  myself  anx- 
iously to  see  if  we  gave  any  sign  that  we  were  in  danger. 
Having  occasion  to  change  cars,  Concetta  and  Camela 
lost  their  heads  and  sprang  upon  the  other  car  while  it 
was  still  in  motion.  Antonio  and  the  conductor  caught 
them  and  lifted  them  up,  or  else  one  or  the  other 
would  certainly  have  been  hurt.  If  our  people  were 
so  overwhelmed  by  life  in  Naples  I  wondered  what 
they  would  do  in  New  York.  However,  before  this 
evening  trip  was  over,  and  we  went  back  to  the 
Albergo  della  Rosa,  my  wife  and  I  both  remarked  a 
change  that  had  come  over  all,  especially  the  younger 
ones.  It  was  one  of  the  first  displays  of  their  adapt- 
ability,— one  of  the  best  characteristics  of  the  Italians 
now  pouring  into  America.  In  a  few  hours  they  had  got 
a  fine  grasp  on  city  ways,  and  the  people  we  brought 
back  to  the  emigrant  lodging-house  behaved  far  dif- 
ferently from  those  we  had  taken  away.  The  wild 
look  was  gone  from  Concetta's  eyes,  and  only  in  the 
roar  of  Broadway  did  I  see  it  again. 


•iSo    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

There  is  no  part  of  southern  Italy  where  the  flea  is 
not  a  bloodthirsty  brigand,  but  in  Naples  he  seems  to 
partake  of  the  characteristics  of  the  city  and  is  clever, 
wily,  bold,  and — oh!  so  numerous.  In  the  Albergo 
della  Rosa,  that  night,  it  really  seemed  that  the  vermin  of 
southern  Europe,  brought  to  the  lodging-house  by  emi- 
grants from  all  lands,  had  assembled  for  an  international 
clinic,  and  we  were  the  subjects.  If  that  great  man 
who  makes  animals  talk  in  his  books  had  only  been 
there,  he  would  have  heard  the  Grecian  bedbug  telling 
the  Russian  Jew  louse  that  he  and  the  Syrian  sand- 
gnat  had  just  had  a  choice  nip  of  raw  American  that 
had  been  pointed  out  to  him  by  the  Calabrese  fleas 
who  were  first-cousins  of  their  hosts  the  Neapolitans. 

Some  beast  of  the  night  had  bitten  little  Ina  on  the 
right  eyelid,  and  when  we  arose  in  the  morning  the 
eye  was  almost  closed. 


CHAPTER  XII 

ROGUERY  AND  ILLITERACY 

BRIGHT  and  early  I  set  about  contriving  some 
method  of  getting  out  of  Italy  in  the  guise  I 
wished.  I  could  not  get  an  Italian  passport 
in  Naples,  for  the  same  reason  I  could  not  get  one  in 
Gualtieri.  I  could  not  get  a  birth  certificate  in  the 
municipality,  for  the  very  good  reason  that  I  had  not 
been  born  there.  Yet  I  must  have  a  passport,  either 
Italian  or  American,  if  I  wished  to  be  allowed  to  go 
aboard  the  Prin^essin  Irene  as  a  third-class  passenger. 
If  I  desired  that  my  wife  and  I  should  travel  first-class 
no  questions  would  be  asked  us  by  anybody,  either  in 
Naples  or  New  York.  That  would  ruin  my  chain  of 
investigation.  I  must  go  in  the  steerage,  and  I  must 
go  through  Ellis  Island.  With  American  credentials  I 
would  leave  the  Prin^essin  Irene  at  the  docks  in  New 
York,  which  I  did  not  desire  to  do.  and  without  the 
credentials  I  could  not  get  on  board  the  ship.  It  was 
truly  a  puzzling  situation.  I  sounded  first  the  under- 
ground methods,  of  which  I  will  have  more  to  say 
later,  and  found  that  they  were  too  dangerous  to  my 
work.  Then  I  decided  to  go  aboard  as  an  American 
and  get  off  as  an  Italian,  and  to  go  aboard  as  an 
American  I  must  go  to  the  consulate,  make  application 
for  a  passport,  and  then,  having  been  properly  identi- 
fied, hurry  to  the  American  embassy  in  Rome  and  get 
the  passport,  a  paper  which  only  the  ambassador  can 
issue. 


152    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

The  American  consul  in  Naples  is  A.  Homer  Bying- 
ton,  a  name  famous  among  journalists  from  Maine  to 
California;  and,  going  to  the  consulate,  I  made  a  clean 
breast  of  the  whole  affair  to  Mr.  Homer  M.  Byington, 
his  vice-consul. 

"  It  is  a  shame  to  let  a  good  story  fall  down,"  said 
he.  "Wait  till  I  can  get  Mr.  St.  Ledger,  our  vice- 
consul,  on  the  docks,  and  we  will  see  what  can  be 
done." 

In  half  an  hour  I  had  the  assurance  that  Com.  Aillo, 
chief  officer  at  the  Capitaneria,  would  allow  me  to 
pass  without  a  passport,  Mr.  St.  Ledger  being  my 
sponsor. 

I  had  yet  to  buy  our  tickets,  and,  going  to  the  offices 
of  Vincenzo  di  Luca  fu  Giacomo,  the  North  German 
Lloyd  broker,  the  man  who  handles  all  the  third-class 
passengers,  I  applied  for  a  ticket,  and  was  refused  be- 
cause I  had  no  passport,  as  the  law  under  which  the 
government  selects  the  brokers  of  emigrants'  tickets 
strictly  forbids  a  ticket  being  sold  to  an  emigrant 
unless  he  has  a  passport. 

The  Barcelona  sub-agent  of  the  La  Veloce  broker  at 
Messina  was  caught  sending  over-aged  emigrants  over- 
land from  Italy  to  Bremen  and  Hamburg,  whence 
they  embarked  for  the  United  States,  and  was  arrested 
and  given  a  term  of  imprisonment.  He  had  been 
smuggling  across  the  northern  border  persons  refused 
passports  because  of  age  and  the  likelihood  of  their 
being  returned  to  Italy  from  Ellis  Island.  One  party 
lost  a  trunk  and  wrote  back  from  Hamburg  about  it, 
and,  the  whole  plot  thus  revealed,  the  arrests  followed. 

The  court  of  last  resort  was  Mr.  Nicolo  Padolfino,  in 
charge  of  the  Neapolitan  broker's  department  of  dec- 
larations, and  by  assiduous  efforts  I  got  his  ear  and 


ROGUERY  AND  ILLITERACY     153 

took  him  into  my  confidence.  I  began  to  feel  that  if  I 
kept  on  at  this  rate  there  would  be  few  officials  in  the 
region  but  would  know  all  about  my  doings,  and  my 
opportunities  would  be  correspondingly  limited.    Many 

things  transpired  but I  emerged  from  the  fray  with 

the  third-class  tickets  that  would  land  my  wife  and 
myself  in  Ellis  Island — all  of  which  goes  to  show  how 
difficult  it  is  for  an  emigrant  to  leave  Italy  without  all 
of  his  papers  being  straight  from  his  native  village  or 
town,  on  up  to  the  last  gate  at  Naples.  During  a 
previous  stay  in  Naples  I  had  heard  of  a  school  in  the 
Via  St.  Sebastian  which  coached  illiterate  and  ig- 
norant emigrants  sufficiently  to  ensure  their  being 
passed  at  Ellis  Island.  Now  I  heard  of  yet  another, 
and,  looking  them  up,  found  that  they  had  the  moral 
support  if  not  the  financial  assistance  of  the  Italian 
Bureau  of  Emigration  and  the  Emigrant  Congress, 
which  had  just  finished  meeting  at  Udine.  All  this 
sounded  very  interesting  and  seemed  to  have  its  start- 
ling features,  but  a  little  further  investigation  showed 
me  that  while  their  intents  are  bad  enough  for  the  in- 
terests of  the  United  States,  their  achievements  are  not 
at  all  dangerous.  While  these  places  are  anxious  to 
coach  up  undesirable  emigrants  and  get  them  out  of 
the  country,  the  foolish,  unappreciative  emigrant  re- 
fuses to  come  to  the  schools  to  be  coached.  If  ever 
these  schools  should  be  again  "discovered,"  I  hope 
that  the  seeker  for  truth  will  learn  the  whole  truth  and 
have  a  good  laugh  over  it. 

At  this  point  a  word  should  be  said  about  the  Emi- 
grant Congress.  It  is  one  of  those  highly  public-spir- 
ited societies,  that  delights  in  its  annual  session  and  the 
attendant  junketing,  the  speeches  that  "view  with 
alarm  "  conditions  which  statistics  show  to  exist,  and, 


154    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

having  appointed  a  committee  to  attend  to  the  read- 
justment of  this  and  that  particular  phase  of  national 
life,  passes  resolutions,  adjourns  only  to  meet  again 
another  year,  and  hear  to  what  extent  the  committee 
has  annoyed  truly  businesslike  statesmen.  The  Udine 
session  was  just  such  a  one.  Some  of  the  speeches 
made  showed  a  ridiculous  lack  of  knowledge  of 
American  conditions.  The  proceedings  lie  before  me 
as  I  write,  and  they  certainly  are  most  futile.  I  am 
glad  they  are.  Here,  with  occasional  bracketed  inser- 
tions to  lighten  passages  which  are  obscure  even  in  a 
very  liberal  translation,  are  the  resolutions  adopted: 

On  the  topic  of  organization  of  the  emigrants  the 
insertion  in  "  the  order  of  the  day,"  moved  by  "  Con- 
gressman" Cabrini  and  carried,  was: 

"  This  assembly  considers  that  a  professional 
[formed  by  salaried  organizers]  organization  open  to 
all  laboring  men,  without  political  or  religious  pre- 
judice, is  one  of  the  very  soundest  methods  of 
ameliorating  the  economic  conditions,  both  moral  and 
intellectual,  of  the  laboring  classes:  holding  that  it  is 
indispensable  to  the  formation  of  a  feeling  of  fraternal 
cordiality  in  the  country,  the  control  of  the  temporary 
emigration,  the  organization  of  the  poor  artisans  ; 
furthermore  contending  that  for  the  assistance  of  the 
emigrants  it  is  necessary  that  an  organization  of  all 
Italian  operatives  consider  the  importance  of  all  this 
and  pray  the  Honorable  Secretary  of  Emigration  to 
instruct  at  all  times,  more  than  in  the  past,  their 
leader's  actions." 

On  the  topic  of  educating  the  emigrant  so  that  he 
may  avoid  being  barred  because  of  illiteracy,  and  may 
not  be  victimized  by  the  patrone  system,  Professor 
Frescura  introduced  the  following: 


ROGUERY  AND  ILLITERACY     155 

"All  are  in  accord  as  to  the  necessity  for  instructing 
the  emigrant.  But  be  it  held  that  the  programme  pre- 
sented by  Professor  Galeno  [  a  noted  philanthropist 
who  recommended  that  special  schools  with  govern- 
ment-paid teachers  be  established],  though  splendid, 
is  too  vast.  It  is  far  better  that  there  should  come 
about  a  modification  of  those  schools  which  we  al- 
ready have." 

When  a  lawyer  named  Cossattini  had  amended  to 
increase  the  pay  of  the  teachers  in  the  districts  where 
help  was  most  needed,  and  "  Congressman  "  Giradini 
had  amended  that  instruction  vary  according  to  the 
exigencies  of  emigration,  the  Frescura  resolution  was 
passed. 

In  the  matter  of  temporary  emigration  the  Congress 
merely  followed  the  lead  of  Professor  Levi-Morenos, 
who  was  a  member  also  of  the  International  Agricul- 
tural Congress  at  Rome  in  May,  1903,  in  which  it  was 
bewailed  that  German  and  other  ships  were  sharing  so 
much  Italian  traffic  back  and  forth  between  Italy  and 
North  and  South  America,  and  that  so  many  emigrants 
were  returning  broken  in  health  and  injured.  There 
was  a  lively  row  over  contract  labor  of  temporary 
emigrants.  We  are  accustomed  to  think  that  our  very 
stringent  contract-labor  laws  are  successfully  exclud- 
ing aliens  under  contract,  but  debate  in  the  Congress 
would  lead  one  to  think  the  laws  had  merely  made  the 
patrones  more  powerful  by  making  "smuggled  "  alien 
labor  more  valuable  to  American  corporations. 

In  the  matter  of  the  "  mediazione "  of  labor,  or 
"  bureauizing  "  it,  as  it  were,  to  avoid  the  necessity  or 
opportunity  for  patrones,  or,  as  they  are  referred  to  by 
real  sociologists  of  the  first  water  on  the  other  side, 
sfruttratori,  a  lively  debate  brought  out  some  sharp 


156    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

attacks  on  government  methods,  Senator  Bodio  mak- 
ing a  great  speech  and  pushing  to  acceptance  the  fol- 
lowing: 

"  This  Congress  considers  it  is  necessary  to  exercise 
in  behalf  of  our  emigrant  labor  a  convenient  media- 
lione  for  avoiding  that  going  forth  blindly  and  that  ex- 
posure to  perfidious  '  grafters '  and  innumerable 
perils,  so  coming  to  a  condition  of  things  that  pro- 
duces an  obnoxious  and  foolish  reduction  of  their  pay, 
raises  the  animosity  of  their  fellow-craftsmen  [  of 
America],  causes  prohibitive  laws  by  the  governments 
[American,  etc.],  acknowledging  the  purely  negative 
character  of  our  insufficient  information  and  the  hurt- 
ful and  too  widely  public  quality  of  the  positive  sort. 

"It  is  our  wish  that  a  more  useful  and  rational 
method  of  private  media^ione  of  our  labor,  as  already 
presaged  in  the  acts  of  the  Secretary  of  Emigration  of 
Udine,  come  to  be  followed  by  the  secretaries  in  sim- 
ilar offices  in  the  chief  places  in  the  provinces,  which 
action  should  be  co-ordinated  by  means  of  a  National 
Federation  centralized,  with  branch  sessions  in  each 
important  centre  of  emigration  in  each  particular 
province." 

It  was  decided  to  hold  another  Congress  in  Rome  in 
two  years. 

Barring  Italian  emigrants  because  they  are  illiterate 
will  result  merely  in  their  being  given  a  superficial 
education  in  reading  and  writing  to  enable  them  to 
pass  our  port  examinations,  and  will  not  raise  the 
standard  of  their  intelligence  in  the  least;  furthermore, 
what  advantage  will  the  United  States  derive  from 
their  being  taught  to  read  and  write  in  Italian  when 
the  ability  to  read  Italian  newspapers  in  this  country 
will  but  serve  to  delay  their  thorough  Americanization. 
It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  many  Italian  news- 
papers in  this  country  are  not  American  any  more  in 


ROGUERY  AND  ILLITERACY     157 

sympathy  than  in  print.  A  thoroughly  American 
newspaper  printed  in  Italian  would  be  a  blessing  in 
both  New  York  and  Boston. 

The  evening  before  the  day  we  were  to  go  aboard, 
we  went  for  a  trip  outside  the  city  to  get  a  little  rest 
and  recreation  before  encountering  the  ordeal  of  going 
through  the  Capitaneria  and  embarking.  I  saw  by  the 
roadside  a  party  of  emigrants  from  one  of  the  villages 
back  of  Naples,  who  were  driving  in  with  huge  carts, 
and  had  stopped,  possibly  for  the  night.  They  were 
the  poorest  that  I  had  yet  seen,  and  two  old  women, 
whom  I  observed,  1  felt  sure  would  be  refused  by  the 
doctors  on  their  general  physical  condition. 

On  our  way  home  we  changed  cars  in  the  San  Fer- 
nandino,  and  as  we  stood  waiting  I  noticed  an  evil- 
looking  "  bravo-like  "  sort  of  a  chap  eyeing  me  closely, 
and  I  moved  away  from  the  remainder  of  the  party  in 
order  to  see  if  he  would  approach  me.  I  found  I  was 
right  in  my  estimate  of  him.  He  evidently  took  me 
for  a  returned  emigrant  with  good  American  dollars  in 
my  pocket,  for  he  came  over,  walked  along  slowly  be- 
hind me,  slapped  me  on  the  shoulder,  and  said  in 
English, — 

"Hello,  John!" 

"Che?"  I  answered,  feigning  stupidity  and  half- 
recognition  as  I  turned  toward  him. 

Then  he  came  out  with  the  old,  old,  very  old  con- 
fidence game.  He  asked  me  where  he  had  seen  me 
last.  I  surmised  it  was  in  Pittsburg;  and  he  was  at 
once  sure  it  was,  and  we  chatted  on  in  Italian,  or  rather 
I  answered  merely  enough  to  keep  my  lingual  dis- 
crepancies from  being  observed.  Just  then  another  of 
his  sort  came  along  and  inquired  the  way  to  a  near-by 
street,  showing  a  fifty-lire  note,  and  saying  he  had 


158    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

been  sent  by  a  man  to  deliver  it,  and  was  so  unfamiliar 
with  Naples  he  had  lost  his  way.  Thief  Number  One 
winked  at  me  and  said  in  English: 

"  Come  on,  John,  we  get  dat  moneys." 

"How?  "said  I. 

Thief  Number  Two  was  staring  around  at  the  build- 
ings to  give  Thief  Number  One  full  chance  with  me. 
This  worthy  made  a  quick  sign  of  playing  cards.  I 
saw  the  car  approaching  which  I  wanted  our  people  to 
take,  and  so,  to  end  matters,  I  turned  him  "  the  sign  of 
the  thumb,"1  a  signal  of  the  freemasonry  of  thieves 
which  I  had  picked  up  long  before  in  the  Italian  quarter 
in  New  York,  and  at  it  the  words  died  on  his  lips.  The 
other  man  caught  it  too,  and  his  eyes  got  very  wide  with 
surprise,  then  suddenly  narrowed  and  darkened.  Both 
responded  with  lightning-like  signals  that  were  so 
near  to  natural  movements  of  the  right  hand  that  if 
both  had  not  done  it  I  would  not  have  known  it  was  a 
signal,  and  when  I  could  not  respond  in  kind  they 
darted  away  as  if  from  sudden  death. 

If  I  had  gone  with  Number  One  in  the  first  place  to 
try  to  fleece  Number  Two,  there  would  have  been  an- 
other case  for  the  Naples  police  of  the  "  mysterious  dis- 
appearance "  of  a  returned  emigrant.  1  could  not  long 
have  concealed  my  nationality,  and  that  might  perhaps 
have  saved  me. 

1  The  sign  of  the  thumb  is  a  quick  motion  of  the  hand  by  turning 
the  whole  hand  palm  up,  fingers  half  closed  and  thumb  out.  It  is  a 
very  general  sign  of  suspicion  of  a  third  party  or  of  confidence  between 
two. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  EMBARKATION  PROCESS 

IN  the  morning  we  were  up  early,  and  after  a  very 
indifferent  breakfast  got  our  hand  luggage  to- 
gether and  departed  from  the  Albergodella  Rosa. 
At  the  door  we  were  beset  by  fruit-venders  with  their 
long  barrows,  and  small  tradesmen  with  all  sorts  of 
trifles  that  they  convinced  our  people  were  indis- 
pensable on  the  voyage;  and  I  really  believe  that  be- 
tween the  lodging-house  and  the  steamship-broker's 
offices  that  portion  of  the  party  which  lagged  behind 
where  I  could  not  control  them  bought  forty  or  fifty 
lire  worth  of  stuff  that  was  worse  than  useless,  being 
merely  a  burden  and  a  care. 

At  the  steamship-broker's  offices  an  enormous  crowd 
was  gathered.  Two  thirds  of  them  had  no  real  oc- 
casion to  go  there,  but  if  one  member  of  a  party  was 
not  right  in  his  papers,  or  imagined  he  was  not,  all  the 
party  went  with  him  to  avoid  being  separated.  We 
had  some  baggage  checks  to  see  about.  It  seemed 
that  there  was  not  one  hour  of  our  journey  from 
Gualtieri  to  our  American  destination  which  was  not 
embittered  by  the  mishaps  of  that  baggage,  and  as  I 
write,  months  after,  some  of  it  is  still  missing.  I  have 
had  thoughts  about  it  that  were  deeper  than  the  greatest 
depths  of  profanity,  and  more  far-reaching  than  the 
extent  of  the  combined  English  and  Italian  languages 
in  blasphemous  reference. 


160    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

We  passed  down  the  Vico  di  Via  Porta  and  along 
the  Marina,  a  veritable  tumult  of  sailing-day  traffic. 

A  highly  picturesque  carreta  loaded  with  emigrants 
and  their  friends  on  their  way  to  the  Capitaneria  from 
their  country  home  came  jogging  by  and  paused  long 
enough  to  be  kodaked. 

Near  the  railroad  tracks  we  came  upon  a  group  that 
was  both  laughable  and  pathetic.  It  was  one  of  the 
places  of  sudden  and  forced  sale  of  household  effects 
of  emigrants.  Some  of  the  foolish  people  will  bring, 
even  from  provinces  more  distant  than  the  Campania, 
quantities  of  household  goods,  furniture,  etc.,  and  their 
hearts  are  almost  broken  when  they  find  they  cannot 
take  it  aboard.  They  have  felt  sure  that  there  must  be 
some  little  corner  on  such  a  big  ship  in  which  they  can 
place  a  half-dozen  two-hundred-years-old  hand-made 
chairs,  or  a  five-foot  bureau,  or  so  small  a  matter  as  a 
table  large  enough  to  accommodate  a  family  of  the 
usual  Italian  size.  However,  here  was  a  pile  of  it, 
heaped  up  indiscriminately,  and  about  and  on  it  were 
beggars  who  had  bargained  to  look  after  it,  or  owners 
who  had  decided  to  remain  and  guard  their  own. 

When  we  arrived  within  the  iron  enclosure  of  the 
Capitaneria  we  found  that  the  first  thing  to  demand 
attention  was  of  course  the  baggage.  It  was  already 
getting  hot,  and  the  large  space  of  open,  unsheltered 
dust  in  front  of  the  Capitaneria  was  strewn  with 
luggage  of  all  shapes  and  sizes.  There  were  huge 
wooden  chests,  bundles  of  bedclothes  and  blankets, 
casks  of  wine,  kegs  of  olives,  and  cheese  and  butter, 
and  quantities  of  small  bags  like  my  own.  All  such 
were  already  tumbling  to  pieces,  being  but  cloth  and 
paper  pasted  over  frail  wooden  frames,  and  made  on 
purpose  to  be  sold  to  emigrants  at  ten  times  their  value. 


THE  EMBARKATION  PROCESS    161 

Men  went  about  selling  grass  ropes  with  which  to  tie 
them  up. 

First  of  all  we  had  to  get  the  baggage  together  and 
separate  the  hand  baggage  from  the  hold  baggage; 
then  the  latter  must  all  be  opened  up  before  the  Ameri- 
can consular  agent  and  inspected,  numbered,  and 
listed;  next  inspected  by  the  port  health  authorities; 
then  received  and  receipted  for  by  the  company's 
agents;  and  what  with  wild  efforts  of  the  emigrants  to 
go  backward  through  the  process,  to  get  shut  trunks 
that  had  been  opened  and  shaken  up  in  inspection,  and 
to  get  through  before  the  steamer  should  leave,  it  was 
a  scene  to  wring  a  man's  soul.  If  any  of  our  party 
had  any  trouble,  they  came  to  Antonio  or  to  me  with 
it.  Antonio  went  about  holding  his  head  as  if  he  was 
afraid  it  would  burst,  and  all  the  emigrants  about  us 
kept  an  eye  on  the  big  ship;  not  due  to  sail  for  hours 
yet,  as  if  they  were  afraid  to  see  it  start  off,  like  a 
train,  at  any  moment. 

This  section  of  the  toil  and  turmoil  being  over  at 
last,  we  found  that  we  had  to  carry  our  encumbrances 
to  the  south  side  of  the  Capitaneria  and  embark  on  a 
small  steamer  which  would  take  us  over  to  the  fumi- 
gating-station,  half  a  mile  across  the  harbor,  on  the 
breakwater.  It  was  an  hour  before  we  were  properly 
assembled  at  this  embarkation  point,  and  the  women 
were  already  almost  succumbing  to  the  dust  and 
heat. 

The  little  steamers  were  not  much  more  than  barges 
with  donkey-engine  power  in  them,  and  emigrants  and 
baggage  were  piled  in  till  it  seemed  they  would  swamp 
the  craft.  The  men  in  charge  of  the  boats  knocked 
the  emigrants  about  in  a  shameful  fashion,  without 
regard  to  their  being  men,  women,  or  children,  and 


162    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

the  fear  of  ' '  getting  into  trouble  "  caused  the  emigrants 
to  take  it  all  without  resentment. 

I  observed  many  emigrants  who  had  come  to  the 
point  for  embarkation  on  these  little  steamers,  taking 
their  baggage  back  without  going  to  the  fumigating- 
station,  and  a  little  careful  watching  showed  me  that 
certain  furtive  Neapolitans  were  directing  them.  The 
little  groups  paused  a  moment  just  outside  the  door 
of  the  police  station  in  the  south  side  of  the  Capitan- 
eria  and  then  hurried  on  around  to  the  north  side 
with  the  baggage. 

I  purposely  put  myself  in  the  way  of  one  of  the 
sneaking  Neapolitans  and  asked  some  question  con- 
cerning the  baggage. 

"You  do  not  need  to  go  over  there  for  fumigation 
and  inspection  if  you  do  not  want  to,"  he  said. 

"  Is  that  so  ?    How  can  we  avoid  it  ?  " 

"  I  know  some  men  who  will  put  on  the  labels  that 
they  put  on  over  there,  and  no  one  will  know  you 
have  not  been  there." 

I  thought  best  to  call  Antonio  to  engineer  the  deal  by 
which  I  hoped  to  trap  this  gang,  which  I  could  see 
must  be  counterfeiting  official  seals.  He  went  aside 
with  the  Neapolitan,  and  soon  turned  away  shaking 
his  head.  I  called  to  him  and  asked  what  was  the 
trouble.  He  said  the  Neapolitan  wanted  fifty  lire  for 
our  eleven  pieces  of  hand  baggage.  The  other  had 
already  gone.  I  told  Antonio  to  offer  him  twenty  and 
I  would  pay  it.  Antonio  offered  fifteen  and  the  Nea- 
politan accepted. 

Soon  a  man  I  had  not  seen  before  appeared  and  beck- 
oned to  us,  and  we  toiled  with  our  loads  over  to  the 
south  side  of  the  Capitaneria,  set  our  baggage  down 
in  a  row  against  the  building,  and  in  an  instant  a  cor- 


At  the  Doorway  of   the  Capitaneria— Author's   Party    on 

the  Quay 


THE  EMBARKATION  PROCESS    163 

don  of  guards,  four  in  number,  was  stationed  about  us. 
They  came  out  of  the  crowd  like  summoned  spirits. 
No  words  passed.  A  fifth  man  appeared,  and  with 
lightning-like  rapidity  affixed  to  the  baggage,  by  lift- 
ing up  the  tacked  ends  of  straps,  or  prying  open  the 
tiny  lead  billets  themselves,  little  metal  seals  impressed 
with  the  seal  of  the  Italian  government.  It  was  the 
work  of  but  a  few  seconds,  interrupted  once  by  the 
appearance  of  a  pompous  uniformed  police  officer  who 
walked  right  by  the  baggage  without  noticing  any- 
thing unusual  in  progress.  The  guards  had  given  a 
quick  signal  as  he  appeared,  and  the  groups  seemed 
most  ordinary.  A  sixth  man  appeared  with  a  paste- 
brush  and  some  little  red  labels.  With  one  movement 
only  he  pasted  each  piece  of  baggage,  and  a  seventh 
man,  following  him,  affixed  some  large  yellow  labels 
bearing  the  United  States  consular  seal.  The  eighth 
man  was  the  one  I  had  first  seen;  he  appeared  to  be 
the  capo  or  chief  of  the  gang. 

Meanwhile  I  had  made  careful  mental  notes  of  the 
eight  men.  I  was  determined  to  get  some  or  all  of 
them  into  the  proper  hands.  As  soon  as  they  were 
through  they  all  hurried  away,  mingling  with  the 
crowd  without  waiting  for  their  pay.  That  seemed 
odd. 

We  carried  our  baggage  around  to  the  other  side  of 
the  Capitaneria,  and  there  stood  the  eighth  man,  really 
the  best  dressed  of  the  lot,  and  signed  to  us  to  put  our 
baggage  inside  a  gate  where  two  policemen  were  on 
guard,  without  going  to  a  stand  where  men  in  the 
service  of  the  United  States  consular  service  were  past- 
ing on  genuine  yellow  labels  on  such  baggage  as  had 
been  over  to  the  fumigating-station. 

As  we  passed  our  baggage  through  the  gate  a  boy 


164    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

marked  each  piece  with  a  number,  gave  us  a  check, 
and  it  was  all  piled  in  rows  on  the  ground,  inside  the 
fence,  under  police  guard. 

Straightening  up  with  a  sigh  of  relief  at  having 
passed  the  danger  line  so  far  as  the  fraudulent  baggage 
was  concerned,  and  free  from  our  encumbrances  for 
a  while  at  least,  I  found  the  eighth  man  at  my  elbow. 
He  said  we  must  now  go  and  be  vaccinated.  This 
was  something  I  did  not  care  about,  nor  did  my  wife. 
We  each  needed  both  arms  in  good  condition  for  some 
time  to  come,  but  as  I  looked  at  my  health  ticket  I  saw 
there  was  a  space  on  the  back  where  there  must  be  the 
vaccination  stamp. 

"  For  a  lire  I  will  tell  you  how  to  keep  from  getting 
a  sore  arm,"  said  the  thief  beside  me.  I  gave  him  the 
lire. 

"When  the  doctor  vaccinates  you,  rub  your  shirt 
sleeve  down  over  the  two  scratched  places  quickly; 
then  suck  them.     He  will  not  stop  you." 

In  the  middle  of  the  open  rough  lot,  very  similar  to 
half-ploughed  ground,  which  lay  out  beyond  the  Capi- 
taneria  fence,  stood  a  small  building  with  a  big  door. 
Crowds  of  emigrants  were  struggling  around  it. 
Venders  of  water-ice,  lemons,  fruit,  etc.,  were  in  the 
midst  of  the  crowd,  holding  their  stands  with  one 
hand  to  keep  them  from  being  knocked  over  while 
they  dealt  out  wares,  made  change,  and  talked  with 
the  other. 

When  we  had  fought  our  way  inside  at  last,  the 
crowd  that  was  let  in  with  us  took  seats  all  around  the 
room  in  a  row.  Three  doctors  sat  on  a  raised  dais 
at  one  side.  One  did  the  vaccinating,  the  others  the 
clerical  end  of  the  work.  I  believe  they  took  turns. 
The    moment    we    entered,   the    vaccinating    doctor 


THE  EMBARKATION  PROCESS     165 

caught  sight  of  my  wife,  and,  advancing  politely,  ad- 
dressed her  in  German.  He  thought  her  an  Austrian, 
and  afterward  confessed  that  he  believed  her  to  be  a 
Moravian  missionary.  He  was  a  very  amiable  sort  of 
fellow,  with  a  fine  education,  both  general  and  pro- 
fessional, I  should  judge. 

With  a  gallantry  which  might  not  have  been  so  ef- 
fusive if  he  had  suspected  that  she  had  a  husband  pres- 
ent, he  vaccinated  my  wife  first,  and  she  removed  the 
virus  with  haste. 

At  the  sight  of  the  fierce-looking  old  man  putting 
down  the  bared  point  of  steel  on  my  wife's  bare  arm  the 
women  shrieked  and  the  children  began  to  cry.  Little 
Anastasia  made  a  break  for  the  door,  but  a  guard 
blocked  his  exit.  Others  fought  to  get  out.  The 
other  doctors  reassured  them ;  and  after  much  difficulty 
all  in  the  room  were  vaccinated,  every  member  of  our 
party  following  the  advice  of  the  thief.  Concetta  was 
as  white  as  milk  from  fright  and  horror. 

Outside,  the  thief  informed  us  that  we  would  not  be 
required  to  go  back  to  the  Capitaneria  just  yet,  but  I 
did  not  believe  him  until  I  had  asked  one  of  the  guards, 
for  1  mistrusted  the  thief  because  he  had  not  asked  for 
the  pay  for  the  job  done  by  the  gang.  Now  he  asked 
us  to  leave  the  vicinity  of  the  Capitaneria  and  go  to  a 
nice  place  with  him  to  get  something  to  eat.  I  re- 
fused, and  then  he  demanded  his  money.  If  we  had 
gone  with  him  he  would  have  put  up  some  game  that 
would  have  wrung  a  few  lire  from  us  at  least,  and,  if 
we  had  been  as  stupid  as  his  usual  victims,  perhaps  all 
that  we  had.  He  not  only  demanded  the  amount 
agreed  upon,  but  three  times  as  much.  He  threatened 
to  get  us  arrested  for  having  fraudulent  labels  on  our 
baggage.     Antonio  was   scared   to   the  rigidity  of  a 


i66    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

poker,  and  all  the  others  were  trembling  like  leaves. 
But  his  bluff  was  not  equal  to  American  aplomb,  and 
in  a  few  minutes  he  went  off  with  ten  lire  and  no 
more.  1  knew  we  would  have  no  trouble  from  him, 
and  was  anxious  to  get  rid  of  him  so  as  to  be  able  to 
communicate  with  the  American  consul  and  secure  the 
arrests  I  had  in  mind. 

Even  though  the  capo  had  left  us,  I  observed  that  we 
were  duly  watched,  and,  try  as  I  would,  I  could  not  get 
a  message  away  unobserved.  1  could  not  leave  the 
party  myself,  nor  could  I  send  any  of  them,  they  being 
strange  to  the  city.     I  began  to  despair. 

It  was  now  time  to  return  to  the  Capitaneria  for  the 
final  examination,  and  to  go  aboard  if  we  passed.  I 
knew  I  should  see  St.  Ledger  there,  but  it  might  be 
too  late. 

We  made  our  way  in  at  the  front  entrance,  and  were 
compelled  to  stand  for  a  long  time  in  the  crowd.  There 
the  capo  joined  us  once  more.  He  had  shed  his  ill 
humor  as  a  snake  sheds  its  skin.  One  of  the  boys 
brought  to  me  the  report  of  a  case  in  which  I  was  in- 
terested. It  was  that  of  Mrs.  Vincenzo  Tortora,  a 
woman  who  had  been  in  New  York  and  lived  with  her 
husband  at  No.  3  Elizabeth  Street,  and  had  returned  to 
visit  her  home  in  a  village  back  of  Naples.  She  had 
with  her  a  two-and-a-half-year  old  boy  born  in  the 
United  States.  Some  time  before,  she  had  endeavored 
to  return  to  the  States,  but  the  doctors  had  refused  to 
allow  her  to  do  so  because  the  child  had  contracted 
trachoma.  I  saw  the  woman  and  talked  with  her,  and 
found  that  she  had  come  down  to  Naples  to  see  the 
"  underground  men,"  who  had  agreed  to  put  her 
through  for  300  lire.  They  had  told  her  to  go  back,  that 
she  could  not  go  on  a  North  German  Lloyd  steamer, 


THE  EMBARKATION  PROCESS    167 

but  must  go  by  a  certain  line  when  they  sent  for  her. 
While  I  was  talking  to  her  the  capo  came  over,  having 
heard  the  boy  who  had  reported  the  case  to  me  telling 
Antonio  about  it,  and  he  assured  the  woman  that  if 
she  had  come  twenty-four  hours  sooner  he  would  have 
sent  her  over  on  the  Prin^essin  Irene  for  100  lire. 

I  drew  him  into  talk  about  the  underground  system 
for  diseased  emigrants,  and  he  said  that  there  were 
doctors  in  Naples  who  could  so  relieve  trachoma  in 
forty-eight  hours  that  if  the  emigrant  kept  up  the  treat- 
ment he  or  she  could  get  by  the  doctors  at  New  York 
or  Boston.  The  eyes  would  be  worse  than  before 
after  the  treatment  was  stopped,  and,  if  continued  too 
long,  would  cause  blindness.  Those  emigrants  who 
could  not  be  doctored  up  temporarily  were  sent  through, 
however. 

"  How  sent  through  ?" 

For  answer  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  and — "Oh,  pay 
some  money  to  some  people  !  "  Always  that  evasive, 
baffling  answer. 

However,  having  heard  of  the  system  in  Messina,  on 
the  steamer,  and  in  the  city  of  Naples,  and  now  seeing 
such  palpable  signs  of  it  right  in  the  shelter  of  the 
Capitaneria,  1  began  for  the  first  time  to  believe  what 
I  could  scarcely  credit  before. — that  the  "gold-paved 
avenue  "  leading  into  my  beautiful,  healthy  home  coun- 
try, for  the  loathsomely  and  contagiously  diseased, 
did  exist.  I  set  on  foot  at  that  point  some  investi- 
gations not  yet  ripe,  and  I  may  never  harvest  them; 
but  if  I  do  not  some  one  else  will  sooner  or  later  "  get 
on  the  inside."  I  shall  later  prove  beyond  a  doubt  that 
there  is  a  door  for  diseased  aliens. 

Another  flagrant  abuse  which  I  should  mention  here 
was  that  of  supposed  bankers'  agents  inducing  emi- 


168    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

grants  to  buy  New  York  drafts  for  the  safety  of  their 
money.  One  man  was  going  about  cautioning  the 
emigrants  to  invest  in  drafts,  and  another  followed  him 
offering  drafts.  The  first  man  came  up  to  me,  after 
some  of  our  boys  had  been  approached  by  him  and 
had  referred  him  to  me. 

"Who  are  you?"  I  asked,  feigning  stupidity. 

"  The  chief  of  police,"  he  said, — and  I  laughed  in  his 
face. 

However,  many  were  caught  in  the  scheme,  among 
them  a  boy  I  had  taken  an  interest  in,  a  lad  named 
Salvatore  Biajo,  bound  for  St.  Louis.  He  had  ioolirein 
gold  and  eight  in  silver,  and  bought  a  draft.  The  draft 
was  all  right,  being  on  the  Bank  of  Naples,  but  the 
man  who  sold  it  to  him,  instead  of  making  it  for  108 
lire  minus  a  few  centesimi  for  discount,  put  it  in  dol- 
lars, writing  in  only  $19  when  it  should  have  been 
about  $21.35  according  to  Post  &  Flagg's  Ellis  Island 
rate.  The  gang  of  draft-sellers  made  two  dollars  off 
young  Biajo,  and  if  they  made  as  much  off  the  hundreds 
of  others  who  bought,  they  did  a  fine  day's  business. 

At  last  we  were  ready  to  move  on,  and,  still  accom- 
panied by  our  thieving  friend,  who  evidently  wanted  to 
see  me  safe  where  he  thought  I  could  do  him  no  harm, 
and  where  I  might  pay  him  a  little  more  for  valuable 
information,  we  entered  the  great  north  pen  in  the 
Capitaneria,  where  emigrants  in  hundreds  were  stand- 
ing, with  their  passports  out,  in  a  solid  mass  held  back 
by  police,  who  peeled  off  the  front  row  from  right  to 
left,  then  back  again;  and  we  filed  across  the  room  to 
a  door  in  the  corner  where  was  the  American  staff,  the 
port  doctor,  the  surgeons  on  duty  for  the  United  States 
Marine  Hospital  Corps,  the  ship's  surgeon,  and  some 
others. 


THE  EMBARKATION  PROCESS     169 

We  were  examined;  our  eyelids  were  turned  up  for 
trachoma;  our  heads  rubbed  over  for  favus;  any  defect- 
ive-looking parts  of  the  body  touched  for  hidden 
disease;  and  every  now  and  then  a  man,  woman,  or 
child  would  be  told  to  stand  aside  for  further  examina- 
tion, and  a  wail  would  go  up  from  the  group  to  which 
that  one  belonged.  It  was  as  if  a  touch  of  death  had 
come  among  them. 

I  saw  one  old  man  who  had  taken  his  wife  and  wid- 
owed daughter  with  her  two  children,  sold  all  his  little 
property,  and  was  starting  for  America  to  open  up  a 
little  business  of  some  sort,  pulled  out  of  the  line,  ex- 
amined for  some  spinal  trouble,  and  turned  down.  The 
family  could  not  go  without  him,  so  they  were  all  turned 
back.  There  were  two  or  three  other  cases  like  that, 
which  happened  there  before  my  eyes.  Last  year  we 
turned  back  over  20,000,  including  dependent  relatives, 
at  our  ports  and  borders.  They  should  never  have 
been  allowed  to  leave  home.  That  is  where  our  system 
is  wrong.  The  emigrant  should  not  be  selected  at  the 
port  of  arrival,  nor  at  the  port  of  embarkation,  but  by 
a  small  visiting  itinerant  board  that  should  come  to  him 
in  his  home  community.  We  would  thus  get  none  of 
the  bad  and  lose  none  of  the  good,  and  a  hundred  out- 
rages would  be  avoided.  The  fuller  argument  I  hope 
to  give  with  the  light  of  facts  yet  to  be  told. 

When  we  appeared  at  the  bar  of  the  police  official 
who  inspects  all  passports.  I  made  our  presence  known 
to  Mr.  St.  Ledger,  and  after  a  word  from  him  to  the 
official  we  were  passed,  went  by  the  place  where  the 
police  were  taking  weapons  from  suspected  bad  men, 
and  out  into  the  enclosure  where  our  baggage  was. 
Against  the  fence  I  saw  the  face  of  the  capo  of  the 
gang  of  thieves  and  counterfeiters. 


170    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

Under  a  pretext  I  got  the  party  halted,  re-entered  the 
building,  followed  by  the  perplexed  St.  Ledger,  and, 
when  inside,  where  the  thieves'  sentinels  could  not  see, 
I  unfolded  the  plot  I  had  discovered. 

In  a  word,  before  the  ship  sailed  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  the  capo  and  two  others  in  the  hands  of  de- 
tectives, and  the  others  would  have  been  captured  had 
not  the  port  doctor,  the  instant  he  was  informed  of  it, 
rushed  up  to  me  in  full  view  outside  in  the  baggage  en- 
closure, followed  by  half  a  dozen  officers,  and  at  the 
sight  the  thieves  flew  like  birds. 

The  port  doctor  refused  to  allow  our  baggage  to  go 
aboard,  as  it  was  fraudulently  passed;  but  in  the  end  I 
got  it  into  his  dull  head  that  if  he  did  as  he  threatened, 
kept  us  there  to  testify,  and  held  our  baggage  for  evi- 
dence, he  would  not  get  any  testimony  from  us;  and 
when  sufficient  consular  pressure  had  been  brought  to 
bear  to  show  him  that  we  had  been  parties  to  the  fraud 
in  order  to  catch  the  counterfeiters  and  make  the  case, 
he  relinquished  his  hold  on  us  and  our  belongings. 
We  found  sixty-eight  other  pieces  of  baggage,  with  the 
fraudulent  labels  on,  in  the  enclosure.  They  could  be 
told  by  a  slight  imperfection  in  the  red  labels.  The 
yellow  counterfeits  of  the  United  States  seals  were 
perfect. 

At  last  we  were  free  to  go  aboard. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE    VOYAGE 

STRUGGLING  up  the  steep  incline  of  the  gang- 
plank, set  from  the  masonry  of  the  quay  of 
the  Capitaneria  of  the  port  of  Naples  to 
the  gap  in  the  railing  of  the  after  deck  of  the 
Priniessin  Irene,  came  hundreds  of  men,  women, 
and  children,  one  and  all  weighted  with  lug- 
gage. Some  staggered  under  the  weight  of  great 
cloth-wrapped  bundles;  others  lugged  huge  valises  by 
the  grass  ropes  which  kept  them  from  bursting  open 
because  of  their  flimsy  construction;  and  even  the  tots 
carried  fibre-baskets  of  fruit,  straw-cased  flasks  of 
wine,  cheese  forms  looped  with  string,  and  small  rush- 
bottomed  chairs  for  deck  sitting,  bought  on  the  quay 
for  twenty  cents  each,  or  home-made  ones  from  the 
villages. 

There  were  people  of  all  the  bloods  of  southern 
Europe,  though  the  southern  Italian  predominated  in 
the  shipload,  just  as  they  predominate  in  every  ship- 
load from  Mediterranean  and  even  from  French  ports 
at  times.  His  nose  and  upper  lip  wrinkled  up  with 
too  much  sunlight,  there  came  an  Oriental  youth, 
nominally  a  Turk,  probably  a  hybrid,  and  in  addition 
to  a  fez  and  a  pair  of  yellow  slippers  his  array  was 
naught  but  an  embroidered  jacket  and  a  pair  of  volumi- 
nous silk  trousers.  I  found  myself  wondering  what 
the  temperature  in  New  York  would  be  on  the  14th  of 
October,  the  day  we  were  due. 


172    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

If  one  looked  carefully  there  were  to  be  seen  twenty 
different  sorts  of  costumes  of  the  contadini.  The  Tus- 
can, the  Trans-teveran,  the  Calabrese,  the  Sicilian,  in- 
denominate  Swiss,  Genovese,  and  so  on;  and  sprinkled 
thickly  through  the  lot  was  a  cheap  attempt  at  the 
European  mode.  The  women  were  to  be  found  wear- 
ing their  head-dresses  much  more  frequently  than  the 
men.  The  male  contingent  seemed  to  have  had  enough 
money  to  buy  for  each  a  new  cap  or  hat.  Here  and 
there  was  to  be  seen  an  emigrant  attired  in  the  best 
style  of  Rome,  and,  despite  the  heat  of  the  late  after- 
noon, wearing  a  heavy  cape  overcoat.  Some  few 
were  barefooted,  and  others  showed  that  they  had 
come  down  to  Naples  dressed  just  as  they  did  at  their 
every-day  labor.  Altogether  it  was  a  motley  assem- 
blage, and  nine  babies  out  of  every  ten  came  aboard 
crying.  I  feel  convinced  that  a  portion  of  these  never 
ceased  until  the  voyage  was  over. 

The  most  notable  feature  was  the  ease  with  which 
one  could  detect  that  every  seventh  or  eighth  person 
had  been  to  America  before,  and  now  had  gathered 
around  him  a  group  of  from  two  to  thirty  friends,  rela- 
tives, and  neighbors,  going  over  in  his  care,  just  as  our 
party  was  going  in  the  care  of  Antonio  Squadrito  and 
myself.  When  the  steerage  passengers  had  all  been 
herded  on,  the  late-coming  first-cabin  voyagers  arrived, 
and  the  crowd  of  friends  outside  the  iron  fence  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  quay. 

It  chanced  that  a  piece  of  baggage  belonging  to 
Genino  was  missing,  and  I  was  by  the  gangway  aft, 
keeping  an  eye  out  for  it,  and  ready  to  tip  a  porter  to 
bring  it  on.  It  was  one  of  those  which  had  been  fraud- 
ulently passed,  and  the  doctor  of  the  port  was  minded 
to  hold  it  for  evidence.     Just  before  I  spied  it,  a  woman 


THE   VOYAGE  173 

standing  just  behind  me  said  in  English  so  plainly  that 
she  knew  I  could  hear,  but  never  dreamed  that  I  un- 
derstood: 

"These  dirty,  repulsive  creatures  really  seem  to  show 
traces  of  the  finer  feelings ;  do  you  not  think  so,  Agnes  ? 
See  that  old  man, — yes,  the  two  other  old  men  with 
him,  down  there  on  the  dock,  looking  up  at  those  peo- 
ple over  there.  I  should  think  it  was  a  family  going 
over.  See  them  wave  their  hands  and  throw  kisses, 
and  see  the  tears  running  down  their  faces.  As  I  told 
my  husband  when  we  came  over,  some  of  them  are  far 
less  heavy  and  embruted  than  one  would  think  to  look 
at  them." 

I  regret  to  say  that  woman  is  the  daughter  of  a  noted 
Philadelphia  clergyman,  and  her  husband  is  an  em- 
ployer of  many  hundreds  of  these  seemingly  "em- 
bruted "  creatures. 

As  soon  as  ever  I  could  be  perfectly  sure  that  all  of 
our  party  from  Gualtieri-Sicamino  and  the  newest  ad- 
ditions to  our  group  from  Potenza,  Avellino,  Scilla, 
etc.,  were  all  aboard,  and  that  none  of  the  baggage  had 
been  left  behind,  I  went  forward  through  the  alley-way 
that  led  between  the  galley,  bakery,  blacksmith  shop, 
and  the  cooks'  and  petty  officers'  quarters,  to  the  for- 
ward deck,  where  a  terrific  hubbub  was  in  progress. 
The  thousand  and  more  persons  there,  with  their  bag- 
gage heaped  about  the  deck,  were  all  talking  and  all  en- 
deavoring to  do  something  which  mad,  wild  impulse 
bade  them  attempt.  It  was  turmoil  and  tumult,  and 
what  made  matters  worse  was  that  two  of  the  for- 
ward hatches  were  open,  and  late  cargo  was  being 
heaved  in  as  fast  as  six  derricks  could  do  it.  The  slings 
with  a  ton  or  two  in  each  would  come  swinging  and 
crashing  over  the  side,  and  a  half-dozen  men  by  shouts, 


174    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

oaths,  and  blows  kept  the  bewildered  emigrants  from 
crossing  the  danger-spaces  between  the  ports  in  the 
railings  and  the  hatches. 

Our  party  was  scattered  all  about.  Little  Nastasia  I 
found  perched  in  a  perilous  nook  in  the  shrouds,  eating 
a  musk-melon  down  to  the  hard  skin,  as  happy  as  he 
could  be.  My  wife,  knowing  that  the  first  thing  to 
look  out  for  was  the  best  sleeping  location,  had  taken 
Camela  Squadrito  and  her  little  daughter  Ina,  and  Con- 
cetta  Fomica,  below  into  the  women's  compartment, 
so  Giovanni  Pulejo  informed  me;  and,  leaving  Antonio 
Squadrito  to  round  up  the  men  and  get  them  and  their 
baggage  below  into  the  second  men's  compartment, — 
it  being  the  best  ventilated,  I  knew, — I  plunged  below 
to  take  advantage  of  the  confusion  and  secure  a  section 
of  beds  for  the  women  and  children  nearest  amidships, 
on  account  of  it  being  steadier  there  in  rough  weather, 
and  near  the  port-holes  for  air  and  light. 

I  could  barely  get  down  the  big  double  companion- 
way,  so  choked  was  it  with  women,  children,  and  bag- 
gage, and  when  I  did  succeed  I  found  my  wife  and  her 
charges  huddled  on  top  of  Camela's  bundles,  waiting 
in  despair  for  order  to  come  out  of  chaos.  On  every 
hand  were  screaming  babies  and  shouting  women,  with 
a  few  men  going  about  as  if  mad;  and  at  the  ap- 
proaches to  the  beds  were  dirty,  heavy-handed  steer- 
age stewards,  who  refused  to  allow  the  women  to 
take  beds  until  they  were  sorted  out  according  to  their 
numbers  on  the  ship's  manifest  and  the  numbers  on 
each  bed.  I  saw  at  a  glance  that  that  would  be  a  work 
of  half  the  night,  and  I  asked  him  why  they  were  so 
particular.  He  answered  that  "a  company  inspector 
was  aboard  this  trip." 

However,  in  a  few  minutes  I  observed  that  a  Gen- 


THE   VOYAGE  175 

ovese  approached  him,  and,  after  a  moment's  parley, 
gave  him  a  five-lire  note,  and  was  allowed  with  all  his 
people  to  take  the  choice  of  the  locations.  Despite  his 
dread  of  the  inspector,  he  could  not  resist  my  money 
also,  and  in  five  minutes  I  had  the  women  of  our 
party  in  the  most  secluded  corner,  where  they  could 
get  both  light  and  air,  that  was  to  be  found  in  the 
place. 

In  a  compartment  from  nine  to  ten  feet  high  and 
having  a  space  no  larger  than  six  ordinary-sized  rooms, 
were  beds  for  195  persons,  and  214  women  and  chil- 
dren occupied  them.  The  ventilation  was  merely 
what  was  to  be  had  from  the  companion-way  that 
opened  into  the  alley-way,  and  not  on  the  deck,  the 
few  ports  in  the  ship's  sides,  and  the  scanty  ventilating 
shafts. 

The  beds  were  double-tiered  affairs  in  blocks  of  from 
ten  to  twenty,  constructed  of  iron  framework,  with  iron 
slats  set  in  checker  fashion  to  support  the  burlap-cov- 
ered bag  of  straw,  grass,  or  waste  which  served  as  a 
mattress.  Pillows  there  were  none,  only  cork-jacket 
life-preservers  stuck  under  one  end  of  the  pseudo-mat- 
tress to  give  the  elevation  of  a  pillow.  As  each  emi- 
grant had  passed  through  the  alley-way  to  come  for- 
ward when  boarding  the  ship,  he  or  she  had  been 
given  a  blanket  as  the  storeroom  door  was  passed. 
This  blanket  served  the  purpose  of  all  bedclothing, 
and  any  other  use  to  which  the  emigrant  might  be 
forced  to  put  it.  In  material  it  was  a  mixture  of  wool, 
cotton,  and  jute,  with  the  latter  predominant.  In  ex- 
tent it  was  the  length  of  a  man's  body  and  a  little  over 
a  yard  and  a  half  wide.  For  such  quarters  and  accom- 
modations as  I  have  described  the  emigrant  pays  half 
the  sum  that  would  buy  a  first-class  passage.     A  com- 


176    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

parison  of  the  two  classes  shows  where  the  steamship 
company  makes  the  most  money. 

As  soon  as  ever  the  women  were  settled  I  made  my 
way  up  and  forward  through  the  mob  to  the  men's 
compartment,  where  I  found  my  183  sleeping-compan- 
ions already  busily  engaged  in  stowing  their  hand  bag- 
gage, getting  their  new  shoes  off  their  blistered  feet, 
changing  their  fine  raiment  for  old  clothes  for  ship 
wear,  on  the  advice  of  those  who  had  crossed  the  ocean 
before,  or  twanging  away  on  guitar  or  mandolin  and 
thumping  the  tambourine. 

The  great  ship  was  to  have  left  her  dock  at  five 
o'clock;  but  it  was  after  six,  and  cargo  was  still  com- 
ing aboard.  The  sun  filtering  through  the  red  haze  of 
the  west  turned  the  dull  blue  of  Vesuvius  to  purple, 
and  the  cream  of  the  line  of  the  city's  expanse  was 
touched  with  pink.  As  I  came  on  deck  into  the  babel 
after  seeing  all  the  men  allotted  into  beds,  the  scene 
about  was  one  of  extreme  beauty.  With  the  wonder- 
fully colored  background  I  have  mentioned,  put  hurry- 
ing small  steamers  and  harbor  boats  in  the  middle 
distance,  and  for  the  centre  of  the  composition  of  your 
picture  behold  the  enormous  bulk  of  the  steamer,  her 
decks  black  with  humanity,  and  clustered  about  the 
sides  scores  of  bumboats  selling  melons,  fico-indias, 
ship-slippers,  caps,  mirrors,  razors,  brushes,  candy, 
wine,  shawls,  seasickness  charms,  toothache  and 
stomach-ache  medicine,  knives,  pipes,  and  numberless 
other  things  which  the  childish-minded  emigrant  im- 
agines are  necessary  to  life  aboard  ship. 

At  last  the  whistle  blew,  the  American  vice-consul 
went  ashore  with  his  official  papers,  the  lighters  cast 
off,  the  ports  in  the  railing  were  closed,  and  the  after 
gangplank   withdrawn.     Then   the   screw   began   its 


THE   VOYAGE  177 

slow  thrashing,  and  soon  we  slid  out  by  the  light  on 
the  end  of  the  breakwater,  leaving  behind  a  dim  vision 
of  a  city  of  rose  and  white  towers  clasped  in  bold  hills 
with  artificed  faces  that  heaved  up  and  rolled  back- 
ward until  lost  in  the  bosom  of  the  night  rushing  on 
from  the  east. 

The  great  ship  attained  its  full  speed,  and  we  glided 
by  Ischia,  Capri,  the  fortresses,  the  prisons,  and  the 
vineyards,  till  only  a  twinkling  light  high  up  on  a 
point  told  where  the  last  land  lay. 

Never  had  the  tumult  on  deck  ceased.  Singing,  cry- 
ing, laughing,  quarrelling,  complaining  of  hunger,  the 
fact  that  they  were  at  last  off  for  America  seemed  to 
rouse  in  all  a  desire  to  say  something  or  make  a  noise. 
Some  few  women  who  fancied  that  already  they  were 
seasick,  though  the  ship  merely  quivered  now  and  then 
from  the  motion  of  the  screw,  sat  about  with  their 
heads  on  their  husbands'  shoulders. 

Now  a  greater  stir  was  brought  about  by  the  ringing 
of  the  bell  that  announced  supper  for  the  steerage. 
The  majority  of  the  emigrants  had  had  but  a  hasty  bite 
at  breakfast-time  twelve  hours  before,  and,  being 
healthy  and  hearty,  were  ravenously  hungry. 

From  the  steerage  galley,  which  was  on  the  level  of 
the  main  deck  forward  under  the  fo'c's'le  head,  the 
cooks  and  stewards  began  to  lug  great  tanks  of  food 
and  baskets  of  bread.  These  they  lined  up  in  a  nar- 
row passage-way  between  the  hatch  and  the  bulkhead 
of  the  galley.  The  tanks  were  huge  tinned  things 
holding  about  twenty-five  gallons  each,  and  from  the 
first  there  was  ladled  out  macaroni  Neapolitan,  from  the 
next  chunks  of  beef  the  size  of  one's  fist,  from  the 
next  red  wine,  and  then  came  the  bread-baskets  and 
the  boiled-potato  tank. 


178    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

As  we  had  come  aboard  and  got  the  blankets,  as  1 
have  told,  we  were  each  handed  a  red  card  bearing  an 
inscription  that  it  was  "Good  for  One  Ration,"  just  as 
on  the  Lahn,  and  advised  that  the  passengers  form 
themselves  into  groups  of  six  and  elect  a  capo  di  ran- 
cio,  who  should  manage  the  mess,  and  would,  when 
elected  and  given  the  six  ration  cards  of  his  group,  be 
issued  a  two-gallon  pan  and  a  gallon  flask-bucket  for 
coffee  or  wine.  When  the  blanket  was  enrolled,  each 
person  found  inside  a  fork,  spoon,  pint  tin  cup,  and  a 
flaring  six-inch-wide,  two-inch-deep  pan  out  of  which 
to  eat,  identical  with  those  on  the  Lahn. 

The  plan,  or  rather  the  ship's  company's  ideal  of  it, 
is  that  the  capo  dirancio  shall  take  the  big  pan  and 
the  bucket,  get  the  dinner  and  the  drinkables,  and  dis- 
tribute the  portions  to  his  group.  But  it  works  out 
that  one  or  two  assistants  are  needed  to  carry  the 
bread  if  it  is  not  desired  to  soak  it  by  dropping  it  into 
the  mess  in  the  pan,  and  a  woman  with  a  baby  in  her 
arms  cannot  very  well  carry  a  full  pan  and  a  full 
bucket.  When  the  meal  is  over,  some  one  of  the 
group  is  supposed  to  collect  the  tin  utensils  from 
whatever  part  of  the  steerage  quarters  the  group  has 
chosen  to  eat  its  meal  in  for  that  time,  take  them  to  a 
wash-room  under  the  fo'c's'le  head,  where  there  are 
several  tanks  with  running  water,  and  wash  them 
ready  for  the  next  time.  But  the  crowd  in  the  wash- 
room after  meals  was  so  great  that  about  one  third  of 
the  people  chose  to  rinse  off  the  things  with  a  dash 
of  drinking-water;  others  never  washed  their  cups 
and  pans;  and  still  others  waited  till  the  next  meal 
and  then  washed  their  kit  just  before  they  ate.  When 
I  say  that  the  water  supplied  for  washing  kits  was 
raw    sea    water    and    cold   at    that,  any   housewife 


THE   VOYAGE  179 

will  understand  instantly  why  none  of  the  cups,  pans, 
spoons,  or  forks  were  clean  and  fit  for  use  after  the 
first  meal,  if  they  were  even  then.  Yet  the  emigrant 
pays  half  the  first-cabin  rate  for  fighting  for  his  food, 
serving  it  himself,  and  washing  his  own  dishes. 

This  night  we  had  little  trouble,  for  Antonio  and  1 
understood  the  order  about  the  groups  of  six,  and  we  did 
everything  in  order;  but  the  mob  was  two  hours  in 
getting  its  supper  satisfactorily,  by  which  time  that 
portion  of  it  which  had  been  hot  was  unfit  to  eat. 

Just  before  the  bell  was  rung  there  came  down  from 
the  boat  deck  a  trim  young  man  in  the  uniform  of  an 
Italian  naval  officer,  and  as  he  passed  me  I  saw  that  he 
was  of  surgeon's  rank  and  knew  he  was  Dr.  Piazza, 
the  surgeon  detailed  by  the  government  to  the 
Prin^essin  Irene  to  look  after  the  welfare  of  the 
emigrants,  just  as  an  Italian  naval  doctor  travels  on 
every  emigrant  ship  leaving  Italian  ports.  The  Italian 
government  does  about  twenty  times  as  much  for  the 
emigrants  as  the  United  States,  yet  the  condition  of 
health  and  finance  in  which  they  arrive  in  America  is 
of  concern  here  and  not  in  Italy,  for  they  become  a 
part  of  us.  It  is  to  our  interests  that  they  should  not 
be  oppressed,  underfed,  robbed,  or  given  unsanitary 
treatment. 

The  young  officer  went  to  the  door  of  the  galley. 
The  chief  steerage  cook  threw  a  clean  towel  over  the 
serving-board  that  barred  it,  and  on  it  set  clean  china 
dishes,  into  which  the  doctor  put  portions  of  each  sort 
of  food,  and  ate  enough  to  test  the  quality.  He  drank 
a  little  of  the  wine.  Every  meal  thereafter  he  did  the 
same  thing.  I  had  had  the  opportunity  of  watching  the 
Italian  doctor  on  the  Lahn  on  the  voyage  to  Italy, 
and  I  must  say  that  both  men  did  their  work  in  a  most 


180    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

commendable  manner.  As  to  the  food  itself,  it  was 
in  its  quality  as  good  as  the  average  Italian  gets  at 
home,  but  the  manner  in  which  it  was  messed  into 
one  heap  in  the  big  pan  was  nothing  short  of  nauseat- 
ing. Every  pound  of  food  and  ounce  of  drink  is 
regulated  by  Italian  law,  both  as  to  amount  per  day 
and  proportion  of  kind  and  variety.  If  there  was  a 
failure  to  live  up  to  the  law  on  the  Lahn  and 
Prin^essin  Irene,  it  was  in  the  wine  and  fish. 

Giovanni  Pulejo  was  chosen  capo  di  rancio  of  our 
family  group,  and  Nicola  Curro,  the  little  cabinet- 
maker and  trombonist,  headed  the  one  in  which  were 
Nunzio  Giunta,  Gaetano  Mullura,  and  the  other  Gualtieri- 
Sicamino  and  Socosa  boys,  while  Giuseppe  Rota  from 
Avellino,  who  had  joined  us  at  Naples,  headed  a  third 
group.  The  others  were  divided  among  groups  of 
other  friends. 

On  the  occasion  of  this  first  meal  the  emigrants  be- 
gan doing  what  is  the  bane  of  life  in  the  steerage; 
throwing  the  refuse  from  their  meal  on  the  deck  in- 
stead of  over  the  side  or  into  the  scuppers.  It  being 
the  first  night  out  of  port,  the  deck  watch  was  too 
busy  securing  derricks,  storing  mooring-gear,  and 
putting  the  ship  to  rights,  to  scrub  the  deck  with  hose 
and  soogey-mougie  when  supper  was  over,  so  that  I 
remember  traversing  the  main  deck  on  the  port  side 
about  eleven  o'clock  that  night  much  as  I  would  cross 
a  slippery  glacier,  for  it  was  covered  with  a  layer  of 
unctuous  filth  that  made  footing  very  uncertain. 

It  was  an  extremely  hot  night,  and,  though  I  was 
weary  almost  to  exhaustion,  the  air  in  the  crowded 
compartment  was  so  foul  that  I  could  not  sleep.  The 
men  and  boys  about  me  lay  for  the  most  part  like 
logs,  hats,  coats,  and  shoes  off,  and  no  more,  sleeping 


THE   VOYAGE  181 

the  sleep  of  the  ineffably  tired.  I  rolled  and  tossed  on 
the  hard  pallet  till  at  last  I  went  on  deck,  and,  seeking 
a  deeply  shaded  corner  on  a  hatch,  I  sat  watching 
the  sea  and  the  night.  Possibly  twenty  minutes  had 
passed  when  from  the  mouth  of  the  alley-way  that 
led  to  the  companion-way  of  the  women's  compart- 
ment a  figure  emerged  and  made  its  way  forward 
cautiously;  for  after  certain  hours  all  steerage  passen- 
gers are  supposed  to  be  below  decks.  As  the  figure 
came  near  me,  I  saw  that  it  was  my  wife.  She,  too, 
had  been  unable  to  breathe  the  air  below,  and  had 
stolen  up,  bringing  with  her  a  heavy  shawl.  She  said 
the  babies  in  her  compartment  were  crying  in  relays 
of  six,  and  that  she  had  had  a  grand  row  with  the 
women  of  the  group  who  occupied  the  section  of 
bunks  next  to  the  women  of  our  party. 

The  trouble  arose  over  the  filthy  habits  of  the  other 
women.  They  were  Neapolitans  of  the  lowest  class, 
and  when  they  were  eating  their  supper  had  chosen 
to  portion  it  out  while  they  sat  in  their  bunks,  and  the 
result  was  that  bits  of  macaroni,  meat,  and  potatoes 
were  scattered  all  over  their  beds,  the  beds  of  their 
neighbors,  and  on  the  floor.  The  other  women  who 
were  minded  to  be  cleanly  made  no  protest,  merely 
looking  askance,  but  my  wife  interposed.  She  brought 
down  a  storm  of  Neapolitan  vituperation  on  her  head. 

The  climax  came  when  the  Neapolitans,  too  lazy  to 
take  their  dishes  up  on  deck  to  wash  them,  rinsed 
them  with  a  cupful  of  drinking-water  in  bed  and  then 
endeavored  to  pour  water  and  pertaining  refuse  out 
of  the  port-hole.  A  little  girl  of  eleven  was  engi- 
neering the  job,  and,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  her 
shoes  were  filthy  with  deck  slime,  used  my  wife's  bed 
as  a  step  to  climb  up  to  the  port-hole,  where,  failing 


182    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

to  get  all  the  water  and  waste  outside,  she  allowed 
the  remainder  to  spill  inside,  down  the  wall  and  on 
the  edges  of  the  two  nearest  beds.  I  do  not  know 
just  what  happened,  but  I  have  an  adequate  fancy, 
and  at  least  there  was  no  more  dish-washing  or  filth- 
spilling  in  that  corner  of  the  compartment. 

Just  as  we  had  observed  on  the  Lahn,  the  men  of 
the  emigrants  were  reasonably  cleanly,  as  were  also 
about  two  thirds  of  the  women;  but  the  other  third 
were  so  grossly  dirty  that  they  littered  every  place 
they  passed  in  a  way  that  the  sailors  and  stewards 
would  not  have  been  able  to  keep  pace  with  even  had 
they  put  forth  their  best  efforts,  which  they  certainly 
did  not.  All  of  the  other  steerage  passengers,  a 
majority  by  far,  had  to  submit  to  the  reign  of  unclean- 
liness. 

I  have  not  told  the  worst  by  any  means.  It  could 
not  be  put  in  print.  The  remedy  for  the  whole  mat- 
ter is  to  pack  fewer  people  in  the  same  ship's  space, 
and  a  regular  service  of  food  at  tables.  The  chief 
stewards  of  ships  will  cry,  "  How  can  i,oooor  1,500 
people  be  served  at  tables  ?  "  A  perfect  argument;  but 
no  such  number  should  ever  be  carried.  If  the  English 
lines  going  out  to  the  Cape  and  Australia  can  give 
closed  cabins  with  served  meals  for  a  proportionately 
less  third-class  rate  than  the  Transatlantic  lines,  the  big 
emigrant-carriers  can  do  it,  and  should  be  forced  to 
give  up  a  part  of  their  profits,  which  are  enormous,  in 
order  that  sanitary  conditions  at  least  may  prevail. 

It  was  nearing  morning  when  we  were  found  by  the 
deck  watch  and  driven  below.  The  air  was  far  worse 
than  when  I  had  gone  up,  but  in  about  half  an  hour 
the  wind  shifted  from  the  quarter  to  the  bow  and  of 
course  to  its  velocity  was  added  that  of  the  ship,  so 


THE   VOYAGE  183 

that  a  fair  draught  was  set  going  below  decks,  and  I 
fell  asleep. 

The  noise  made  by  the  men  and  boys  about  awoke 
me  in  little  more  than  an  hour  later,  and  the  second 
day  of  the  voyage  was  begun. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  VOYAGE—  Continued 

IT  was  a  gray  threatening  morning  when  I  came 
on  deck.  The  boys  of  our  party  came  up  one  by 
one,  and  were  a  very  ill-pleased  lot  indeed  when 
they  found  that  if  they  wished  to  wash  even  their  faces 
and  hands  they  must  use  the  salt  water  in  the  scullery- 
rooms  forward,  or  else  be  content  with  half  a  tin  cup- 
ful of  drinking-water,  for  at  the  drinking-water  taps  a 
sailor  was  constantly  stationed  to  prevent  any  one  from 
taking  more  than  was  enough  for  drinking.  In  a  short 
while,  though,  they  learned  to  go  often  for  a  drink 
during  the  day,  and  save  what  they  did  not  want  in 
empty  wine-bottles,  unused  flask-buckets,  etc.,  and 
with  care  they  secured  enough  for  facial  ablutions  each 
morning.  As  for  those  fellow-passengers  who  were 
not  overfond  of  washing,  the  scarcity  of  water  was 
seized  as  an  excuse  for  not  washing  at  all. 

About  eight  o'clock  the  steerage  cooks  and  stewards 
served  "biscuits"  and  coffee.  The  latter  was  what 
might  be  expected.  The  first  named  was  a  disk 
of  dough,  three  quarters  of  an  inch  thick,  and  a 
hand's  length  broad.  It  was  as  hard  as  a  landlord's 
heart,  and  as  tasteless  as  a  bit  of  rag  carpet.  The 
worst  of  it  was  that  about  half  the  biscuits  were 
moldy.  About  some  3,000  were  served  out,  and  for 
the  next  half  hour  disks  went  sailing  high  in  the  air 
over  the  sides  and  into  the  sea.  Three  times  on  the 
voyage  were  the  biscuits  moldy:  considered  from  the 


MID-VOYAGE  SCENES 
Mora — Syrian    Jews — Prostrated    by  the   Swell — Children 

Escaping  Seasickness 


THE   VOYAGE  185 

Egan  War  Department  commissary  standpoint  that  is 
not  bad. 

I  gathered  our  party  in  the  lee  of  No.  2  hatch,  and 
we  breakfasted  on  food  from  the  store  brought  from 
home,  eked  out  with  the  coffee  and  the  two  sound 
biscuits  we  received.  We  used  a  corkscrew  to  separate 
the  biscuit  into  edible  fragments 

After  breakfast  the  crowds  on  deck  took  to  mirth 
and  song.  Mouth-organs,  tambourines,  and  accordions 
were  produced,  and  it  became  evident  that  it  would 
take  a  great  deal  to  long  repress  the  resilient  Italian 
spirit.  Before  an  hour  had  passed  every  man  who  had 
a  set  of  lotto  cards  and  numbered  disks  had  started  a 
game  in  some  corner  sheltered  from  the  wind.  A  real 
Gulf  of  Lyons  blow  was  coming  on  slowly,  and  I 
knew  a  few  hours  would  see  an  end  of  the  merriment. 
So  far  the  ship  was  as  steady  as  a  dead  man's  stare. 

The  dinner-bell  rang,  and  the  crowd,  since  it  was 
happy,  very,  very  hungry,  and  not  at  all  sea-wise,  ate 
to  repletion  of  the  fare,  which  was  about  the  same  as 
that  of  supper  the  night  before,  only  being  ladled  out 
with  more  care.  1  warned  our  people  that  since  they 
were  where  they  were,  and  not  engaged  in  their  usual 
toil  and  exercise,  and  since  it  was  likely  to  be  rough, 
they  should  not  eat  very  much.  All  obeyed  except 
Camela,  Concetta,  Ina,  and  little  Nastasia.  They  ate  till 
the  big  pan  was  empty. 

After  the  meal  Ina  quizzed  me  as  to  why  the  ship 
floated. 

"What  does  it  sit  on  while  it  runs  along  ?  " 

"The  water." 

' '  Just  water  ?    No  rails  ?  " 

"No.  It  is  water  and  nothing  else  for  half  a  mile 
down." 


186    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

She  thought  soberly  a  minute,  and  then  her  big  eyes 
brightened. 

"Oh,  I  know  why  there  are  so  many  children  on  the 
ship.  If  they  were  all  big  folks  they  would  be  so 
heavy  they  would  make  it  sink,  wouldn't  they?" 

In  an  hour  the  sea  increased  from  a  small  jubble  to  a 
short  swell,  and  the  crowds  on  deck  began  to  grow 
silent.  As  my  wife  and  I  walked  about  watching 
faces  growing  pale,  it  was  a  study  indeed.  Those  who 
have  known  the  first  throes  of  seasickness  will  under- 
stand why  these  poor  people  grew  sorely  afraid.  If  it 
had  not  been  for  the  jesting  of  those  who  had  crossed 
before,  or  who  were  inured  to  a  reeling  deck,  they 
would  have  been  almost  panic-stricken.  Our  party,  all 
except  Nunzio  Giunta,  my  wife,  and  myself,  wilted 
before  the  wave. 

In  fifteen  minutes  two  thirds  of  the  crowd  had  hur- 
ried below,  and  the  other  third  were  a  sight  to  behold. 
I  made  Camela  and  Concetta,  who  were  deathly  sick 
as  a  result  of  their  over-indulgence  at  dinner,  stay  up 
in  the  rushing  air  until  both  were  unable  to  hold  up 
their  heads.  Concetta's  heart-action  was  very  bad,  and 
it  seemed  best  to  get  her  to  bed,  so  Nunzio  Giunta 
shouldered  one  and  I  the  other,  and  though  the  ship 
was  rolling  savagely  by  this  time  we  managed  to  get 
them  aft  and  below.  As  I  came  back  after  Ina,  she 
was  crying  beside  Antonio,  who  was  very  sick  indeed. 

"What  is  the  matter,  Ina?"  I  said. 

"O,  Uncle  Berto,  I'm  all  sicked,  and  I'm  going  to 
die,  'n'  they  '11  throw  me  overboard,  'n'  I  'II  never  see 
Giuseppe  "  [her  father]. 

For  the  emigrants  it  was  a  frightful  afternoon,  and 
the  compartments  below  and  the  deck  above  were  in 
a  condition  that  is  beyond  the  scope  of  any  tale. 


THE   VOYAGE  187 

At  supper  time  about  one  sixth  of  the  crowd  lined 
up  to  get  rations.  So  many  of  the  capo  di  rancio 
phalanx  were  sick  that  nearly  all  of  those  who  did 
draw  rations  did  it  on  borrowed  tickets.  I  saw  one 
man  get  the  full  portion  for  six.  The  others  of  his 
group  were  unable  to  touch  a  mouthful,  so  he  sat  down 
in  a  corner  out  of  the  wind  and  ate  every  particle.  It 
was  a  gastronomic  feat  worthy  of  record. 

The  worst  feature  of  this  stormy  afternoon  was  that 
the  ship's  officers  chose  it  as  the  time  to  deliver  to  the 
emigrants  the  passports  which  had  been  taken  from 
them  for  inspection  by  the  police  in  the  Capitaneria  at 
Naples.  It  was  also  made  the  occasion  of  the  "  count- 
ing of  noses,  "when  it  was  made  sure  that  Caterina 
Fancetti  No.  214,  and  Giovanni  Masuolo  No.  468,  etc., 
were  duly  aboard.  Since  the  United  States  authorities 
exact  a  fine  of  $200  from  any  ship  which  delivers  less 
emigrants  to  the  Ellis  Island  or  other  port  authorities 
than  the  ship's  manifest  shows  to  have  been  aboard, 
the  ship's  people  take  great  care  that  for  every  number 
and  name  they  have  on  the  manifest  there  is  an  emi- 
grant to  deliver. 

This  would  have  been  all  well  and  proper  the  next 
day,  for  instance,  but  this  afternoon  one  half  of  the 
steerage  passengers  were  so  wretchedly  sick  that  it 
was  nothing  short  of  cruelty  to  compel  them  to  get  up 
out  of  their  beds  and  come  up  on  deck,  where  they 
were  passed  in  line  before  the  officers,  and  the  pass- 
ports were  delivered  as  names  and  numbers  were 
answered  and  checked  off. 

Nunzio  Giunta,  who  had  no  qualm  of  seasickness, 
attended  to  getting  Antonio  and  the  men  and  boys  up, 
while  I  went  below  for  the  women.  They  were  in  a 
condition  that  was    truly  pitiable.     Concetta's  white 


188    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

face  had  a  purple  tinge  in  it,  and  she  lay  gasping  for 
breath;  her  heart-action  really  dangerous.  Camela 
could  scarcely  lift  her  head.  The  steerage  stewards  in 
their  dirt-smeared  working  rigs  were  in  the  compart- 
ment, pushing,  shoving,  jerking,  and  cursing  the 
women  and  children  to  get  them  out  and  up  the  com- 
panion-way. The  result  of  their  efforts  was  to  clear 
the  place  of  those  who  were  not  too  sick  to  go  readily, 
but  the  large  number  that  remained  in  bed  were  not 
given  any  great  length  of  respite.  One  of  the  stewards 
came  around  with  a  stick,  a  piece  of  pine  box,  rapped 
on  the  sides  of  the  bunk,  and  poked  them  with  it,  and 
soon  they  were  herded  at  the  foot  of  the  steps,  where 
the  greater  number  of  them  sank  down  in  a  heap,  un- 
able to  attempt  to  force  their  way  up  through  those 
who  had  dropped  down  on  the  stairs.  My  wife  and  1 
contrived  to  get  Camela  and  Concetta  up  the  com- 
panion-way. The  others  were  able  to  help  themselves. 
In  the  alley-way  we  found  a  state  of  things  of  which 
it  is  as  revolting  to  write  as  it  is  to  read.  There  was 
not  a  spot  on  which  it  was  fit  to  step,  yet  here  was 
jammed  a  mass  of  sick  women  and  children,  many  of 
them  sunk  down  against  the  wall.  The  officers  were 
not  yet  through  with  the  people  coming  up  from  the 
next  compartment  forward,  and  so  two  sailors  were 
guarding  the  door  to  prevent  any  more  women  com- 
ing out.  I  contrived  to  work  Concetta  through  to  the 
door,  and  just  outside  the  portal,  in  order  that  she 
might  get  the  air,  and  in  so  doing  placed  some  ten  feet 
between  my  wife  and  myself. 

Just  then  there  came  along  one  of  the  steerage 
cooks,  bearing  a  big  can  of  supplies  from  the  store- 
room. There  was  no  room  for  him  to  pass  in  the 
alley-way.     He  cried  out  in  German  for  the  people  to 


THE   VOYAGE  189 

make  way  for  him,  but  of  course  they  did  not  under- 
stand, and  were  too  closely  packed  to  do  so  even  if 
they  had.  He  was  a  big  fellow  of  a  very  brutal  type 
and  when  he  found  that  the  path  was  not  cleared  he 
turned  his  shoulder,  drew  back,  and  drove  his  shoulder 
into  the  mass  of  women  and  children.  I  saw  what  he 
was  going  to  do,  but  could  not  reach  him.  Women 
with  babies  in  their  arms,  children  deep  down  in  the 
press  of  their  elders,  were  knocked  back  in  a  heap. 
One  of  the  women  he  struck  was  my  wife.  Quick  as 
a  flash,  she  recovered  herself  and  drove  a  blow  straight 
from  the  shoulder,  landing  under  his  left  ear.  One  of 
the  sailors  from  the  outside  started  in,  but  I  blocked 
him.  A  more  surprised  man  than  that  steerage  cook 
it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine.  He  went  on  about 
his  business  very  meekly.  The  women  around  gazed 
at  my  wife  in  awe,  and  one  of  them  asked  Camela 
later  what  manner  of  woman  she  was  to  imperil  her 
chances  for  admission  to  the  United  States  by  striking 
one  in  authority. 

We  had  chosen  the  Prirvressin  Irene  because  she  is  the 
largest  and  best  emigrant-carrying  ship  in  the  trade, 
and  the  line  to  which  she  belongs  stands  toward  the 
front  among  the  others  in  its  treatment  of  the  third- 
class  passengers.  People  who  have  crossed  many 
times  and  know  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  steerage  travel 
prefer  the  Lahn  or  the  Prin^essin  Irene,  so  that  we  knew 
we  should  find  the  minimum  of  abuse  in  her.  What 
must  the  conditions  be  in  ships  in  the  northern  trade 
and  in  the  cheaper  ships  running  from  Mediterranean 
ports.  Almost  the  only  time  that  the  third-class 
people  were  treated  as' passengers  was  at  the  time  of 
planking  down  their  200  lire.  The  men  of  the  crew 
were  inclined  to  treat  them  as  inferior  beings,  to  be 


190    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

knocked  and  pushed  about,  and  I  regret  to  say  they 
took  their  cue  from  their  immediate  superiors. 

The  third  day  of  the  voyage  was  Sunday,  and  the 
weather  was  improving.  The  seasick  people  began 
to  think  life  worth  clinging  to.  The  capo  di  rancio 
crowd  at  dinner  was  nearly  the  full  size.  My  wife 
looked  once  at  the  mixture  in  the  big  pan  and  then 
turned  away.  Though  I  knew  what  the  matter  was  I 
asked  her. 

"  I  was  just  thinking  how  far,  how  very  far  it  is  to 
Martin's,"  she  said  with  a  tremble  in  her  voice. 

Knowing  full  well  that  there  are  always  secret  chan- 
nels on  board  a  ship  for  the  getting  of  food  if  one  has 
money,  I  had  been  trying  every  steward,  cook,  page, 
etc.,  I  could  corner,  and  offering  ridiculous  prices  for 
something  to  eat.  Not  that  the  food  for  the  steerage 
was  so  bad  we  could  not  eat  it.  We  had  been  eating 
it,  and  we  expected  to  continue  to  eat  it;  but  we 
wanted  a  supply  to  fill  in  with  on  those  occasions  when 
it  was  not  what  we  wanted.  When  I  sailed  as  a 
member  of  the  crew  in  ships  of  the  Hamburg-Amer- 
ican and  American  lines,  a  very  good  source  of  rev- 
enue to  the  cooks  and  stewards  was  the  secret  sale  of 
food  to  the  third-class  passengers  who  had  money. 
On  the  Lahn  we  had  been  able  to  buy  everything  we 
wished.  The  trouble  on  the  Prin^essin  Irene  on  this 
voyage  was  that  the  inspector  was  aboard.  At  last, 
however,  I  found  a  petty  officer  who  had  a  cabin 
down  the  alley-way,  and  I  "  persuaded"  him.  The 
result  was  a  sudden  and  gracious  increase  in  our  com- 
forts in  all  that  one  could  expect  in  the  steerage.  The 
only  drawback  was  the  necessity  for  extreme  care  in 
coming  and  going. 

In  the  Sunday  afternoon  chatting  around  deck,  where 


Half   a  Dozen    Races  on   Common    Ground — His   Brotlr 
cup — The  Immigrant  Madonna 


THE   VOYAGE  191 

the  people  sat  on  the  hatches,  the  deck,  the  winches, 
in  fact,  anywhere  they  could  get,  there  being  no  place 
in  the  entire  steerage  section  that  was  distinctly  in- 
tended for  sitting  down,  1  found  numbers  of  people 
who  had  squeezed  through  the  examination  at  Naples 
by  little  hooks  and  crooks. 

Monday  morning  we  were  nearing  Gibraltar.  The 
peaked  rock  rose  up  out  of  the  clouds  in  the  west 
nearly  an  hour  before  we  slid  around  Europa  Point 
and  came  to  anchor  with  the  fortress  frowning  upon  us 
and  British  warships  lying  all  about.  The  tender  of 
the  company  steamed  out  at  once,  bringing  passengers 
and  mail,  and  into  the  steerage  there  came  quite  a 
number  of  Spaniards,  Portuguese,  a  Moor  or  two, 
etc.  The  bumboat-men  swarmed  about  the  ship  on 
both  sides,  and  came  up  and  over  the  rail  like  mon- 
keys, hauling  up  stuff  from  their  boats  in  baskets. 

By  the  knuckles  of  Mars!  What  a  joy  to  get  good 
Dutch,  Havana,  and  Egyptian  tobacco  once  more.  In 
Italy  the  government  so  monopolizes  the  sale  of 
tobacco  that  the  demand  for  good  cigars  and  pipe 
tobacco  is  very  slight;  therefore  to  find  anything  fit  to 
smoke  in  a  strange  city  is  like  hunting  up  lost  heirs. 
When  one  does  get  a  good  Havana  cigar  in  Rome  it  is 
as  dry  as  an  undertaker's  eye. 

In  addition  to  tobacco  we  laid  in  here  a  good  supply 
of  fruit  and  nuts,  and  if  it  had  not  been  for  our  very 
limited  baggage  could  have  driven  some  fine  bargains 
in  smuggled  goods. 

While  we  lay  there  taking  in  the  last  lighter-loads  of 
freight,  the  hatches  were  open  and  the  crew  at  work 
on  deck,  so  that,  with  all  the  emigrants  up  from  the 
compartments  to  see  the  sights,  the  space  forward  of 
the  hurricane  deck  was  one  seething,  jostling  mass  of 


192    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

people.  I  improved  the  opportunity  to  get  my  kodak 
out  while  the  sun  was  bright  and  the  ship  still,  and 
had  climbed  up  on  a  refrigerator  by  the  forward  rail  of 
the  hurricane  deck,  and  with  my  camera  hidden  was 
waiting  my  chance  to  get  a  group  without  having  them 
all  looking  at  the  lens.  I  had  given  out  my  occupation 
as  photographer  to  explain  to  the  ship's  people  and  my 
fellow-passengers  my  possession  and  use  of  a  camera. 
They  are  not  often  seen  in  the  steerage.  As  I  stood 
there  two  men  and  two  women  from  among  the  first- 
class  passengers  came  by  and  paused  at  the  rail  to  look 
down  on  the  steerage  crowd.  The  one  man,  a  well- 
fed  elderly  person,  I  have  since  ascertained  is  an  in- 
fluential Western  banker  and  politician.  One  woman 
is  his  wife,  the  other  woman  a  friend  of  the  first- 
while  the  other  man  is  an  architect  of  some  repute. 

Said  Mrs.  Banker:  "  Dear  me,  just  see  all  those  chil- 
dren.    What  dirty  little  imps  they  are." 

A  tin-cupful  of  drinking-water  to  cleanse  a  family  of 
faces! 

Answered  Mrs.  Banker's  friend:  "Oh,  terrible  to 
think  of  admitting  such  people  wholesale  into  the  United 
States.  Just  look  at  the  slovenly  dresses  of  those 
women,  wrinkled  and  dirty — ugh." 

Sleeping  in  one's  skirts  does  not  improve  their  fresh- 
ness! 

"  Yes,  yes,"  observed  the  architect,  "there  ought  to 
be  a  stop  put  to  it:  they  are  a  menace  to  our  civilization.'' 

His  grandfather  came  over  to  Montreal-  in  the  coop 
of  a  French  sailing-ship  about  1840. 

"These  Italians  are  the  worst  of  the  lot.  They  are 
a  dangerous  element.  Stick  a  knife  in  you  in  a  minute. 
Look  at  that  villainous-looking  fellow  standing  right 
here  on  this  box,  smoking  a  cigar." 


THE   VOYAGE  193 

The  Wise  and  Superior  Four  turned  their  eyes  on 
me,  for  it  was  I  the  banker  meant.     He  went  on. 

"  There  is  a  fair  sample  of  your  Mafia  member. 
Criminal  ?  Why,  criminal  instinct  is  written  in  every 
line  of  his  head  and  face.  See  the  bravado  in  the  way 
he  holds  his  shoulders  and  the  nasty  look  in  his  uneasy 
eyes.  I  '11  bet  he  has  a  bad  record  a  yard  long  behind 
him  in  Italy,  and  he  will  double  the  length  of  it  in 
America.  By  George,  I  should  hate  to  meet  that  man 
at  night  in  a  lonesome  spot." 

I  could  not  resist  the  temptation.  I  stepped  over  to 
the  other  end  of  the  box,  within  a  few  feet  of  him, 
looked  up,  and  said: 

' '  Pardon  me ;  but  you  are  one  of  the  fools  who  are  not 
safe  from  their  own  errors,  even  in  a  daylight  throng." 

At  noon  I  had  an  opportunity  for  which  I  had  been 
waiting:  fine,  high  sunlight  on  a  dinner  crowd,  and 
the  purser  in  charge. 

This  man  was  a  huge  fellow,  tall  and  heavy,  as  power- 
ful as  an  ox,  and  one  would  have  thought  the  two  silver 
stripes  on  his  sleeve  were  the  decorations  of  a  Czar. 
At  every  meal,  when  he  superintended  the  ladling  out 
to  the  capo  di  rancio  corps  and  their  helpers,  he  had 
taken  upon  himself  the  handling  of  the  crowd.  He 
had  no  set  system  of  lining  them  up  as  the  men  on  the 
Lahn  had,  but  would  pick  out  groups  of  three  and  four 
as  the  fancy  occurred  to  him  and  pass  them  on  to  the 
servers,  pouring  forth  a  flood  of  directions,  commands, 
and  oaths  in  German  which  of  course  no  one  but  his 
own  men  understood.  His  use  of  Italian  seemed  to  be 
limited  to  "Avanti!  Avanti!"  which  seemed  to  mean 
to  him,  "Hurry  up!"  "Come  on!"  "Stand  back 
there!"  "Let  me  pass!"  "  That  is  enough!  "  "Come 
back  here!  "    "  Don  't  push!  " — and  forty  other  things. 


i94    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

The  crowd  in  the  rear  always  pushed  the  front  ranks 
up  nearer  the  entrance  to  the  "  Lane  of  Food,"  as  the 
Italians  dubbed  it,  and  this  seemed  to  irritate  the  Czar 
immeasurably.  Forgetting  that  it  was  all  the  fault  of 
his  lack  of  system  and  constant  change  of  method, 
he  would  charge  into  the  press  like  an  angry  bull,  and 
clear  a  lane  through  them  by  hurling  his  own  huge 
bulk  into  the  mass  of  human  beings. 

The  unfortunate  feature  of  this  was  that  the  Italians, 
with  their  natural  deference,  allowed  the  women  and 
children  who  were  doing  capo  di  rancio  duty  to  have 
the  foremost  places.  I  had  seen  him  hurl  about 
women  with  babies  in  their  arms,  and  children  clinging 
to  their  skirts,  as  if  they  were  mere  bundles  of  rags, 
and  1  determined  that  he  should  be  reckoned  with,  and, 
as  evidence,  sought  a  photograph  of  one  of  his  charges 
in  the  very  act. 

Taking  a  position  on  the  top  after  rail  of  the  fo'c's'le 
head  on  the  port  side,  I  set  the  shutter  at  one  fifteenth 
of  a  second  and  gave  the  diaphragm  a  sixteen  opening. 
One  of  the  pictures  I  took,  which  is  herewith  repro- 
duced, tells  its  own  story. 

As  we  sailed  away  from  Gibraltar  on  a  smooth  sea, 
the  steerage,  well-fed  on  bumboat  delicacies,  gathered 
on  the  main  deck  and  fo'c's'le  head,  and  games  of 
lotto,  cards,  and  mora,  the  guessing  game,  were  soon 
in  progress  on  every  hand.  Here  and  there  groups 
were  singing  or  struggling  with  a  few  simple  sentences 
in  English.  Gaetano  Mullura  and  several  of  the  boys 
were  gathered  about  my  wife,  and  she  was  teaching 
them  how  to  count  money  and  ask  for  something  to 
eat,  two  of  the  essentials  in  America.  Gaetano  and 
Felicio  Pulejo  saved  one  sentence  mass  of  new  in- 
formation: "Give  me  some  bread,  please," — but  lost 


LIFE  ABOARD  THE  PRINZESSIN  IRENE 

Men's  Sleeping-quarters — Ladling  out  Food — The  Purser 
Hurling  Passengers  About — On  the  Fo'c's'1-head 


THE   VOYAGE  195 

the  "some,"  the  "please,'*  and  the  expression  in  the 
shuffle.  All  during  the  voyage  they  went  about  ob- 
serving to  their  admiring  fellow-passengers: 

"Gifa  me  bret,"  or  "  Gifa  me  meat." 

There  were  scores  of  musical  instruments  among  the 
steerage  people,  and  an  impromptu  band  was  gotten 
up.     It  might  have  been  worse. 

The  next  morning  all  the  steerage  passengers  were 
sent  below  after  breakfast,  and  allowed  to  stay  for  two 
hours  in  the  reeking  crowded  compartments,  while 
the  health  inspection  was  made  by  the  ship's  doctor  as 
prescribed  by  law.  The  doctor  and  an  officer  stood  by 
each  companion-way  in  turn,  and  as  the  men  and  boys, 
then  the  women  and  children,  poured  up,  a  steward 
punched  their  health  tickets,  the  same  which  bore  the 
name,  ship's  manifest  number,  vaccination  stamp,  and 
sheet  of  manifest  letter.  Jt  was  the  second  time  this 
was  done,  and  we  had  been  four  days  at  sea. 

The  next  day  was  very  rough,  and  the  following 
one  a  beautiful  season  in  which  we  spent  the  greater 
portion  of  the  time  watching  the  picturesque  Azores  as 
we  glided  along  so  close  to  the  shores  that  the  people 
at  their  work  in  the  vineyards  and  gardens  were  very 
plainly  seen.  All  about  were  little  fishing-boats  with 
half-naked  boatmen  who  stood  up  and  shouted  to  us. 
There  was  another  medical  inspection  that  day. 

The  next  day,  the  9th  of  October,  marked  a  heavy 
gale,  and,  despite  the  size  of  the  ship,  quite  a  bit  of 
water  came  aboard.  The  decks  were  almost  deserted, 
and  wherever  the  seasick  women  and  children  were 
gathered  they  were  for  the  most  part  prostrated  on  the 
planks.  Below  decks  there  were  music  and  song  close 
by  where  fellow-passengers  were  in  terrible  suffering 
from  vaccination   and  seasickness.      Fortunately  the 


196    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

high  wind  ventilated  the  compartments  sufficiently  to 
make  them  bearable.  I  found  my  left  arm  beginning 
to  swell  and  throb,  and  by  midnight  it  was  in  very  bad 
condition.  The  little  trick  of  rubbing  off  the  virus  in 
Naples  had  failed  to  work,  because  I  was  so  anxious 
to  get  a  photograph  that  I  had  done  it  carelessly. 

In  my  talks  with  the  men  below,  this  day,  I  found  a 
man  who  has  two  wives,  one  in  Italy  and  one  in  Amer- 
ica, and  did  not  seem  to  consider  any  very  great  harm 
done.  He  looked  at  the  matter  from  no  standpoint  of 
sentiment,  merely  from  one  that  was  utterly  practical. 
In  investigations  since  that  time  I  have  found  that  there 
are  many  Italians  in  America  who  have  wives  and 
families  on  both  sides  of  the  water,  and  if  there  are 
many  Italians  there  are  more  Jews  and  Germans. 

I  also  found  a  man  who  lives  in  Pittsburg,  who  had 
just  been  home  to  Messina  to  get  himself  a  wife.  His 
family  sent  him  one  from  home,  but  he  went  down  to 
Ellis  Island  to  meet  her,  and  was  informed  that  he 
must  marry  her  then  and  there  before  she  could  be 
admitted.  Since  the  photograph  of  her  that  had  been 
sent  him  for  approval  was  taken  when  she  was  four- 
teen, and  she  had  changed  very  much  at  twenty,  he 
fled  the  place  and  allowed  the  Ellis  Island  authorities  to 
deport  her.  Now  he  had  gone  home  and  married  her 
younger  sister.  He  is  employed  by  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  on  a  section  job  at  $45  a  month  and  perquisites, 
and  had  arranged  while  in  Messina  for  ten  men  to  leave 
on  the  Liguria,  the  next  ship  sailing.  They  were 
"recommended"  to  friends  in  Pittsburg,  but  he  had 
paid  their  fare  and  had  promised  them  work.  He  had 
been  twelve  years  in  the  country.  Thus  is  the  contract- 
labor  law  evaded. 

Some  time  this  day  Guiseppe  Rota  had  stolen  from 


THE   VOYAGE  197 

him  seventy  lire,  money  which  it  was  most  desirable 
for  him  to  have  on  entering  the  United  States,  as  prov- 
ing him  not  likely  to  become  a  public  charge,  and  he 
was  wild  with  the  fear  of  being  sent  back.  I  assured 
him  that  I  would  take  care  of  him,  but  from  that  hour 
he  followed  me  everywhere  1  went,  like  a  big  New- 
foundland dog,  and  until  the  moment  I  delivered  him 
into  the  hands  of  his  friends  in  New  Jersey  he  was  a 
most  unhappy  mortal. 

The  night  was  extremely  stormy,  and  the  tons  of 
water  that  fell  on  deck  shook  the  ship  so  much  that 
few  of  the  emigrants  slept.  A  priest  who  was  voy- 
aging in  the  steerage  in  mufti  sat  up  with  a  group  of 
friends  in  a  corner,  praying,  and  all  the  men  of  our 
party  alternately  moaned  and  prayed.  The  pain  in  my 
arm  inspired  me  to  anything  but  words  indicative  of  a 
religious  state  of  mind. 

About  two  o'clock  the  Italian  commissario,  the  naval 
surgeon,  came  down  and  made  an  inspection.  He 
found  five  men  very  sick  in  one  corner,  and  discovered 
a  drain  there  which  a  lazy  steward  had  allowed  to  be- 
come choked.  The  corner  was  worse  than  a  pigpen, 
and  some  of  the  things  that  commissario  said  and  did 
raised  him  higher  in  my  esteem  than  ever. 

In  the  morning  I  was  myself  in  such  a  state  that  I 
made  my  way  down  at  ten  o'clock  to  the  hospital,  the 
companion-way  of  which  lay  just  abaft  that  leading  to 
the  women's  compartment.  There  the  Italian  commis- 
sario had  over  fifty  sick  men,  women,  and  children 
awaiting  his  care.  I  waited  till  the  last,  in  order  to 
observe  the  manner  of  handling  the  patients.  It  was 
expeditious,  thorough,  and  gentle,  and  all  of  the  pa- 
tients whom  I  questioned  later  said  that  the  German 
doctor  was  not  to  be  compared  with  Dr.  Piazza. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

NEARING  THE  GATE 

SUNDAY  fell  on  the  nth,  and  it  was  a  pleasant 
day  till  afternoon,  when  it  began  to  get  rough. 
The  ship's  band  was  sent  forward  to  play  on 
the  hurricane  deck,  in  order  to  cheer  up  the  emigrants, 
many  of  whom  were  beginning  to  look  very  badly, 
and  to  endeavor  to  brace  them  up  till  port  could  be 
reached;  for  it  is  a  great  saving  to  the  company  to  take 
as  many  passengers  as  possible  to  Ellis  Island  in  a  good 
state  of  health. 

On  this  day  occurred  another  medical  inspection ;  and 
to  make  all  of  the  health  tickets  appear  to  have  been 
properly  punched  as  each  passenger  was  inspected  day 
by  day,  a  steward  whom  I  had  heard  called  Beppo 
went  about  and  carefully  punched  any  vacant  spaces. 
As  neither  my  wife  nor  myself  had  gone  by  for  the 
last  three  of  the  four  health  inspections,  having  missed 
the  call  by  being  busy  eating  in  the  petty  officer's 
cubby,  Beppo  punched  out  the  full  twelve  days  of  the 
voyage  at  one  punching.  When  those  tickets  were 
presented  at  Ellis  Island  there  was  nothing  to  show 
that  their  bearers  had  not  been  properly  inspected  each 
day. 

That  night  Beppo  and  two  other  stewards,  who  were 
on  watch  below,  went  into  the  women's  compartment 
and  drank  some  wine  that  had  been  brought  aboard  by 
a  Spanish  woman  of  uncertain  character,  and  in  a  short 
while  a  small  orgie  was  in  progress.     About  six  per- 


NEARING   THE   GATE        199 

sons  participated.  The  other  women  finally  roused  to 
protest,  and  the  stewards  addressed  them  in  language 
that  is  not  fit  to  be  stated  here,  and  continued  until 
they  were  ready  to  quit. 

In  the  morning  the  warmth  of  the  Gulf  Stream  began 
to  stir  the  chilled  blood  of  all  hands,  and  the  first  sail 
sighted  since  the  Azores  caused  the  poor  emigrants  to 
rejoice,  as  it  was  a  token  that  they  were  nearing 
America.  In  a  slow  way  the  Italian  provincial  songs 
which  had  prevailed  changed  to  American  airs,  at- 
tempted by  those  who  had  been  in  the  States.  Every- 
body seemed  happier  than  they  had  been  for  days,  and 
first-cabin  passengers  began  to  appear  in  numbers  on 
the  forward  end  of  the  hurricane  deck.  Several  young 
women  had  brought  out  little  bundles  of  delicacies, 
candy,  oranges,  apples,  etc.,  and  were  dropping  them 
over  the  rail  to  the  emigrant  children  below.  This 
kindly  occupation  was  observed  by  the  first  officer, 
who  was  on  the  bridge,  and  he  came  down  in  haste 
and  rebuked  the  first-cabin  young  women  with  severity, 
and  sent  the  ship's  interpreter  down  to  hector  the  emi- 
grant children  and  their  mothers.  I  wonder  what  he 
would  have  said  had  he  known  the  quantities  of  first- 
cabin  fare  that  was  being  smuggled  to  emigrants  by 
the  stewards  and  cooks  every  day. 

That  night  we  saw  Nantucket  light,  and  from  that  on 
my  wife  and  I  counted  the  hours.  We  arrived  too  late 
the  night  of  the  13th  to  go  up  the  harbor,  and  so  pro- 
ceeded slowly  so  as  to  reach  Quarantine  by  eight 
o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  14th. 

The  night  before,  the  joy  among  the  emigrants  that 
they  were  reaching  the  Promised  Land  was  pitiful  to 
see,  mingled  as  it  was  with  the  terrible  dread  of  being 
debarred. 


200    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

There  was  little  sleeping  all  night.  About  twelve 
o'clock  the  women  woke  up  the  sleeping  children, 
opened  their  packs,  and  took  out  finery  on  top  of  finery, 
and  began  to  array  the  little  ones  to  meet  their  fathers. 
My  wife  pleaded  with  Camela  to  stay  in  her  bunk  and 
wait  for  daylight  at  least,  but  Camela  could  not  under- 
stand why  she  should  wait,  and  at  three  o'clock  little 
Ina  was  brought  up  on  deck  arrayed  in  her  very  best, 
and  as  clean  as  her  mother  could  make  her  with  a 
small  bottle  of  water  and  a  skirt  combination  wash-rag 
and  towel. 

By  six  o'clock  all  the  baggage  in  the  compartments 
had  been  hauled  out  and  up  on  deck,  and  the  hundreds 
of  emigrants  were  gathered  there,  many  trying  to  shave, 
others  struggling  for  water  in  which  to  wash,  and 
mothers  who  had  been  unable  to  dress  their  children  lo 
their  satisfaction  in  the  cramped  quarters  below  were 
doing  the  job  all  over  again,  despite  the  chill  air. 

Happy,  excited,  enthusiastic  as  they  were,  there  was 
still  that  dread  among  the  people  of  the  "Batteria," 
the  name  used  to  sum  up  all  that  pertains  to  Ellis 
Island.  I  saw  more  than  one  man  with  a  little  slip  of 
notes  in  his  hand  carefully  rehearsing  his  group  in  all 
that  they  were  to  say  when  they  came  up  for  examina- 
tion, and  by  listening  here  and  there  I  found  that  hun- 
dreds of  useless  lies  were  in  preparation.  Many,  many 
persons  whose  entry  into  the  country  would  be  in  no 
way  hindered  by  even  the  strictest  enforcement  of  the 
letter  of  the  emigration  laws,  were  trembling  in  their 
shoes,  and  preparing  to  evade  or  defeat  the  purpose  of 
questions  which  they  had  heard  would  be  put  to  them. 

Some  of  the  people  who  had  confided  in  me  came 
around  even  two  or  three  times  to  ask  me  whether  I 
thought  they  looked  at  all  "sick  in  the  eyes."    One 


NEARING   THE   GATE        201 

woman  who  fancied  that  her  baby  had  trachoma 
gorged  the  child  all  that  day  in  an  effort  to  get  it  asleep 
and  keep  it  asleep,  so  that  the  doctor  should  pass  it 
without  examining  it,  as  she  was  prepared  to  protest 
against  its  being  waked  up. 

More  than  once  I  heard  leaders  of  groups  telling 
men: 

"Remember,  you  have  got  no  work  and  you  paid 
your  own  way." 

"  Oh,  but  they  will  not  let  me  in  if  they  think  I  have 
no  work  and  will  have  no  money  to  keep  my  family 
from  chanty,"  protested  one  fellow  whom  I  knew  was 
under  promise  of  work. 

"  That  makes  no  difference;  you  are  a  jackass  not  to 
do  as  1  tell  you;  don't  you  think  I  know  my  busi- 
ness ?"  was  the  answer  he  received. 

One  man  whom  I  knew  to  be  of  independent  means 
and  in  no  wise  an  unfit  person  under  the  law  to  be  ad- 
mitted was  going  about  in  a  very  nervous  state,  his 
hand  constantly  on  some  papers  in  his  breast  pocket. 
I  had  talked  with  him  before,  and  he  had  told  me  he 
had  had  a  store  in  Salerno.  Now  I  approached  him 
and  drew  him  into  conversation  about  the  land  already 
in  sight,  and  before  long  he  drew  out  the  papers  he 
had  in  his  pocket.  In  addition  to  his  passport  and  his 
regular  ticket  of  health  he  had  the  naturalization  papers 
of  a  full-fledged  American  citizen.  The  name  on  them 
was  not  the  name  on  his  ticket  of  health,  and  which 
would  be  the  same  on  the  ship's  manifest,  and  I  told 
him  that  if  he  endeavored  to  use  the  naturalization  pa- 
pers at  the  docks  he  would  certainly  get  into  trouble. 
He  was  greatly  frightened  and  was  very  suspicious  of 
me,  so  much  so  that  I  was  unable  to  get  any  further 
information  out  of  him.     I  found  one  of  his  friends 


202    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

aboard  who  was  a  man  of  more  experience,  and  after 
telling  him  just  what  lay  before  the  Salerno  man  if  he 
attempted  to  use  the  naturalization  papers,  I  persuaded 
him  to  find  out  where  and  how  the  Salerno  man  got 
them.  In  half  an  hour  he  came  back  and  said  the  Sa- 
lerno man  was  below,  weeping,  and  ready  to  commit 
suicide,  but  had  told  him  that  he  had  gone  with  three 
other  men  to  a  man  in  the  first  wine-shop  on  the 
Strada  del  Duomo  off  the  Strada  Nuova  in  Naples,  and 
had  paid  fifty  lire  each  for  American  citizens'  papers 
brought  home  by  returning  emigrants,  and  the  four 
were  to  receive  fifteen  lire  each  if  they  returned  them 
after  use.  The  three  other  men  had  sailed  on  the 
Citta  diNapoli. 

Numbers  of  the  people  were  privately  taking  out 
and  setting  aside  varying  sums  from  their  slender 
stores  of  money,  with  which  to  "pay  something  to 
the  American  inspector  and  American  doctor."  So  ac- 
customed were  they  to  extortion  by  officials,  that  they 
refused  to  believe  me  when  I  told  them  that  it  would 
cease  at  Ellis  Island.  They  were  astounded  and  deeply 
puzzled  when  it  did. 

Giuseppe  Rota  followed  me  wherever  I  went,  for  I 
had  promised  to  lend  him  the  money  to  replace  his 
stolen  seventy  lire,  and  though  we  were  hours  and 
hours  yet  from  Ellis  Island  he  was  afraid  the  ship 
would  dock  at  any  moment,  a  giant  in  the  uniform  of 
an  American  immigrant  inspector  would  appear  and 
demand  to  see  twelve  dollars,  and  I  would  be  out  of 
sight,  in  which  case  he  would  be  locked  up  and  sent 
back. 

As  we  approached  Sandy  Hook  the  alternate  glee 
and  depression  of  the  groups  were  pathetic.  Even 
Antonio  was  trembling  with  excitement  and  said  to 


NEARING   THE   GATE        203 

me:  "  Suppose  they  will  not  let  me  back  in.  Can't  I 
tell  them  just  to  telephone  up  to  my  bank  in  Stoning- 
ton,  and  they  will  tell  them  that  1  got  a  wife  and  prop- 
erty there,  and  it  will  be  all  right."  Camela's  tears 
were  constantly  ready  to  fall,  for  there  dwelt  in  her 
heart  a  dread  that  something  would  arise  to  prevent 
her  reunion  with  Giuseppe. 

The  steerage  stewards  and  the  interpreter  under  the 
direction  of  a  junior  officer  appeared  and  ordered  all 
the  steerage  passengers  to  pass  up  from  the  forward 
main  deck  to  the  hurricane  deck  and  aft,  leaving  their 
baggage  just  where  it  was.  Wild  commotion  broke 
forth,  for  this  was  preparatory  action  at  last.  Slowly 
the  chattering,  excited  hundreds  were  got  aft  and 
crowded  into  the  space  usually  given  to  second-cabin 
passengers,  and  after  a  long  wait  there,  while  we  ap- 
proached Quarantine,  and  the  port  doctor's  boat  came 
out,  and  the  Chamberlain  carrying  the  Ellis  Island 
boarding-officers  and  a  newspaper  man  or  two,  there 
were  cries  forward  along  the  hurricane  deck  which  in- 
dicated that  the  crowd  was  being  passed  back  to  steer- 
age quarters. 

1  knew  we  were  about  to  pass  before  the  port  doc- 
tor's deputy  and  the  boarding-officers,  and  got  our 
party  together  and  into  the  line  passing  forward  along 
the  promenade  deck.  As  we  approached  the  forward 
end  we  saw  the  dour  German  doctor  standing  with  a 
gray-whiskered  man  in  uniform,  on  whose  cap  front 
was  the  welcome  gold-thread  eagle  design  of  the 
United  States  service.  As  we  came  nearly  abreast  of 
them  I  saw  another  official  on  the  right-hand  side,  and 
turned  my  head  slightly  to  see  what  was  occurring  on 
that  side  of  the  line.  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  steerage 
stewards  beyond  the  officials,  hurrying  the  emigrants 


204    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

down  the  companion-way,  and  the  next  instant  re- 
ceived a  heavy  raking  blow  on  the  bridge  of  my  nose 
and  up  my  forehead.  It  partly  stunned  and  dazed  me, 
and  I  was  merely  conscious  of  stumbling  on  and  of 
having  the  spectacles  which  I  wore  for  reading  or  dis- 
tance-viewing hanging  by  the  hook  over  one  ear.  Be- 
fore I  could  even  see,  I  was  at  the  head  of  the  com- 
panion-way, and  the  stewards  were  hustling  my  wife 
down  the  steps.  I  gathered  from  what  she  was  say- 
ing that  the  German  doctor  had  struck  me,  and,  turn- 
ing to  look  at  him,  saw  he  was  looking  after  me  with 
a  sneer  on  his  face.  To  go  back  would  have  been  to 
spoil  my  investigations  just  at  the  last  stage,  and  with 
a  lamb-like  meekness  I  went  below,  where  my  wife 
told  how,  having  uncovered  my  head,  as  is  the  rule  in 
passing  the  doctor,  I  had  replaced  my  hat  a  second  too 
soon  as  I  turned  to  look  to  the  right,  and  the  German 
doctor  had  reached  over  her  head  and  struck  me  with 
the  back  of  his  wrist,  inflicting  a  heavy  blow  under  the 
pretense  of  brushing  my  hat  from  my  head. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

WITHIN  THE  PORTALS  OF  THE  NEW  WORLD 

WHEN  the  inspection  was  finished,  the  great 
steamer  got  under  way  once  more,  and  in 
the  glorious  sunlight  of  mid-forenoon  we 
steamed  up  between  South  Brooklyn  andStaten  Island, 
with  the  shipping,  the  houses,  and  the  general  contour 
of  the  harbor  very  plainly  to  be  seen.  On  every  hand 
were  exclamations  among  the  immigrants  over  the 
oddity  of  wooden-built  houses,  over  the  beauty  of  the 
Staten  Island  shore  places;  and  when  the  gigantic  sky- 
scrapers of  lower  Manhattan  came  into  view,  a  strange 
serrated  line  against  the  sky,  the  people  who  had  been 
to  America  before  cried  out  in  joyful  tones  and  pointed. 
A  low  murmur  of  wonder  was  heard  from  the  new- 
comers.    Nunzio  Giunta,  at  my  elbow,  said: 

"  Antonio  told  the  truth." 

Then  there  was  a  rush  to  port  to  see  the  Statue  of 
Liberty,  and  when  all  had  seen  it  they  stood  with  their 
eyes  fixed  for  some  minutes  on  the  great  beacon 
whose  significance  is  so  much  to  them,  standing  within 
the  portals  of  the  New  World  and  proclaiming  the  lib- 
erty, justice,  and  equality  they  had  never  known,  pro- 
claiming a  life  in  which  they  have  an  opportunity  such 
as  never  could  come  to  them  elsewhere. 

The  majority  of  the  immigrants  aboard  who  had  been 
over  before  had  landed  previously  at  the  Battery,  and 
few  knew  Ellis  Island  to  be  the  immigrant  station,  so 
that  comparatively  little  attention  was  paid  to  it.     An- 


206    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

other  odd  thing  was  the  effect  the  sight  of  the  magnif- 
icence of  New  York  had  on  the  people  who  were 
destined  for  Western  and  New  England  points.  More 
than  one  expressed  a  desire  to  remain  in  New  York. 
If  it  be  considered  that  nine  out  of  every  ten  immi- 
grants are  of  rural  birth,  and  that  the  city  is  always 
most  fascinating  to  country  people,  it  can  be  under- 
stood why  immigrants  are  so  prone  to  congregate  in 
the  cities  aside  from  the  considerations  of  convenience 
to  labor  and  opportunities  for  small  trading.  I  have 
found  many  Jews  who  went  out  of  New  York  on  their 
first  trip,  and  on  their  second  stayed  in  the  city,  return- 
ing with  their  entire  families  and  with  all  plans  made 
for  a  permanent  residence  in  the  metropolis. 

In  what  seemed  a  very  short  space  of  time  we  had 
steamed  up  the  harbor,  up  North  River,  and  were  be- 
ing warped  into  the  North  German  Lloyd  piers  in  Ho- 
boken.  There  were  only  a  few  people  down  to  meet 
friends  of  the  third-class,  but  the  usual  crowd  awaited 
the  first-cabin  passengers.  Some  of  the  Italians  bore 
extra  overcoats  to  give  to  the  shivering  "greenhorns," 
as  they  call  them, — an  American  word  which  is  cur- 
rent throughout  the  south  of  Italy  and  in  the  Italian 
quarters  of  American  cities. 

What  seemed  to  the  eager  immigrants  an  unreason- 
ably long  time  of  waiting  passed  while  the  customs 
officers  were  looking  after  the  first-class  passengers  and 
they  were  leaving  the  ship.  When  the  way  was  clear, 
word  was  passed  forward  to  get  the  immigrants  ready 
to  debark.  First,  however,  Boarding  Inspector  Vance 
held  a  little  tribunal  at  the  rail  forward  on  the  hurri- 
cane deck,  at  which  all  persons  who  had  citizens' 
papers  were  to  present  them.  I  watched  him  carefully 
as  he  proceeded  with  his  task  of  picking  out  genuine 


Part  of  the  Author's  Party — All  Eyes  to  the  Statue  of  Liberty 


WITHIN    THE    PORTALS     207 

citizens  from  the  other  sort  and  allowing  them  to  leave 
the  ship  at  the  docks;  and  if  all  officials  are  as 
thorough  and  as  careful  as  he,  then  is  the  law  en- 
forced to  its  limit,  and  the  many  evasions  of  it  which 
seem  to  exist  are  things  no  official  or  set  of  officials  can 
prevent  operating  on  this  side  of  the  water.  Here, 
again,  I  could  not  help  seeing  that  deceit,  evasion,  and 
trickery  were  possible,  inasmuch  as  the  inspector  can 
only  take  the  papers  on  the  face  of  them,  together 
with  the  immigrant's  own  statement;  and  if  the  gangs 
who  smuggle  aliens  in  on  borrowed,  transferred,  or 
forged  citizens'  papers  have  been  careful  enough  in 
preparing  and  coaching  their  pupils,  there  is  no  way  of 
apprehending  the  fraud  at  the  port  of  arrival,  nor 
would  there  be  at  the  port  of  embarkation;  but  there 
would  be  no  chance  for  any  such  practices  if  the  ex- 
aminations were  made  in  the  community  of  the  immi- 
grant's residence. 

Those  whose  citizenship  was  doubted  by  the 
inspector,  and  who  had  their  families  with  them, 
were  compelled  to  go  to  Ellis  Island  with  them,  or 
allow  the  families  to  go  through  the  process  alone. 

At  last  we  were  summoned  to  pass  aft  and  ashore. 
One  torrent  of  humanity  poured  up  each  companion- 
way  to  the  hurricane  deck  and  aft,  while  a  third  stream 
went  through  the  main  deck  alley-way,  all  lugging 
the  preposterous  bundles.  The  children,  seeing  suffi- 
cient excitement  on  foot  to  incite  them  to  cry,  and 
being  by  this  time  very  hungry,  began  to  yell  with 
vigor.  A  frenzy  seemed  to  possess  some  of  the  peo- 
ple as  groups  became  separated.  If  a  gangway  had 
been  set  to  a  rail-port  forward,  there  would  have  been 
little  of  the  hullabaloo,  but  for  a  time  it  was  frightful. 

The  steerage  stewards  kept  up  their  brutality  to  the 


208    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

last.  One  woman  was  trying  to  get  up  the  companion- 
way  with  a  child  in  one  arm,  her  deck  chair  brought 
from  home  hung  on  the  other,  which  also  supported 
a  large  bundle.  She  blocked  the  passage  for  a  mo- 
ment. One  of  the  stewards  stationed  by  it  reached 
up,  dragged  her  down,  tore  the  chair  off  her  arm, 
splitting  her  sleeve  as  he  did  so  and  scraping  the  skin 
off  her  wrist,  and  in  his  rage  he  broke  the  chair  into  a 
dozen  pieces.  The  woman  passed  on  sobbing,  but 
cowed  and  without  a  threat. 

As  we  passed  down  the  gangway  an  official  stood 
there  with  a  mechanical  checker  numbering  the  pas- 
sengers, and  uniformed  dock  watchmen  directed  the 
human  flood  pouring  off  the  ship  where  to  set  down 
the  baggage  to  await  customs  inspection. 

The  scene  on  the  pier  had  something  impressive  in  it, 
well  worthy  of  a  painter  of  great  human  scenes.  The 
huge  enclosed  place,  scantily  lighted  by  a  few  aper- 
tures, and  massive  with  great  beams  and  girders,  was 
piled  high  in  some  places  with  freight,  and  over  all 
the  space  from  far  up  near  the  land  end,  where  a 
double  rope  was  stretched  to  prevent  immigrants  from 
escaping  without  inspection,  down  to  the  pier  head, 
where  the  big  door  was  open  to  allow  the  immigrants 
to  pass  out  and  aboard  the  barges  waiting  to  convey 
them  down  the  river  again  to  Ellis  Island,  was  covered 
with  immigrants,  customs  inspectors,  special  Treasury 
detectives,  Ellis  Island  officials,  stevedores,  ship's  peo- 
ple, dock  watchmen,  and  venders  of  apples,  cakes, 
etc. 

The  dock  employees  were  all  German,  some  of  them 
speaking  very  little  English,  and  none  that  I  saw  using 
Italian.  While  their  plan  of  keeping  the  immigrants  in 
line  in  order  to  facilitate  the  inspection  of  baggage  was 


WITHIN    THE    PORTALS     209 

all  very  good  and  quite  the  proper  thing,  the  brutal 
method  in  which  they  enforced  it  was  nothing  short 
of  reprehensible.  The  natural  family  and  neighbor- 
hood groups  were  separated,  and  a  part  of  the  bag- 
gage was  dumped  in  one  place  and  a  part  in  another. 
When  the  dock  men  had  herded  the  off-coming  immi- 
grants in  a  mass  along  the  south  side  of  the  pier  with 
an  overflow  meeting  forward  of  the  gangway  on  the 
north,  it  was  the  natural  thing  for  the  parties  to  begin 
to  hunt  for  each  other,  and  for  leaders  of  groups  to 
endeavor  to  assemble  the  baggage.  Women  ran 
about  crying,  seeking  their  children.  Men  with 
bunches  of  keys  hurried  hither  and  thither  searching 
for  the  trunks  to  match  in  order  to  open  them  for  cus- 
toms inspection,  and  children  fearsomely  huddled  in 
the  heaps  of  baggage,  their  dark  eyes  wide  with  alarm. 
The  dock  men  exhorted  the  people  in  German  and 
English  to  remain  where  they  were,  and,  when  the 
eager  Italians  did  not  understand,  pushed  them  about, 
belabored  them  with  sticks,  or  seized  them  and  thrust 
them  forcibly  back  into  the  places  they  were  trying  to 
leave. 

One  massive  German  speaking  good  English  was 
endeavoring  to  prevent  our  party  from  going  to  the 
spot  where  we  saw  our  baggage,  and  where  the  cus- 
toms inspectors  were  already  at  work.  Camela  and 
Concetta  were  in  advance,  Antonio  was  assembling 
the  hand  baggage,  and  my  wife  was  guarding  the 
camera,  inoperative  here  for  lack  of  light,  so  that  there 
was  no  one  with  the  party  that  understood  German 
or  English. 

"Get  back  there,  get  back  there!"  he  shouted  in 
English. 

"I  must  go   unlock  my   trunks,"  said  Camela  in 


2io    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

Italian,  understanding  from  his  gesture  that  she  was 
called  to  a  halt. 

"I'll  knock  the  brains  out  of  a  few  of  you  dirty 
with    this    club.      G—    your 


souls  to  any  way.     I  '11  break  your  neck 

if  you  leave  that  line  again, ,"  etc. 

So  saying,  he  thrust  his  open  palm  into  her  face  and 
forced  her  back.  I  got  up  just  in  time  to  set  him  back 
on  a  fig-case  and  inform  him  that  we  had  stood  for 
brutality  on  a  foreign  soil  and  on  shipboard,  but  we 
were  through  taking  it  mildly. 

"Wot!     I'll    fix   you    for    buttin'   in,   you 

dago!" 

"  Hold  on,  that  fellow 's  a  Secret-Service  man.  He 's 
no  dago.  He  speaks  too  good  English,"  said  another 
dock  man  who  hurried  up  to  the  first  man,  who  had 
risen  and  was  preparing  to  "do  "  me. 

His  manner  changed. 

"  'Scuse  me,  mister,  but  ye  see  these would 

make  anybody  mad;  they  ain't  got  no  sense  at  all, 
don't  mind  what  you  tell  'em,  and  'd  run  all  over 
Hoboken  if  you  let  'em." 

I  gave  him  a  little  good  advice  on  how  to  treat  well- 
meaning  human  beings,  and  we  passed  on. 

In  a  few  minutes  we  were  having  one  more  wrest- 
ling-match with  the  baggage.  By  this  time  the  cus- 
toms men  had  passed  our  heap,  and  when  I  did  get 
an  inspector  and  got  it  looked  into,  two  trunks  were 
held  up  for  customs  charges  on  account  of  all  the 
provender  packed  in  them,  and  the  two  musical  in- 
struments Antonio  had  bought  in  Naples  were  held. 
Unfortunately  the  marks  of  the  prices  asked  by  the 
Neapolitan  dealer  were  still  on  them,  and  though  An- 
tonio had  got  them  for  just  about  one  third,  the  customs 


Croatians    and    Italians — Swedes    Arriving — Loading    the 

Barges,  New  York 


WITHIN   THE    PORTALS     211 

appraiser  later  set  a  duty  on  them  that  totaled  more 
than  half  the  original  cost.  When  we  were  through 
with  the  trunks,  we  found  that  the  inspectors  had 
passed  over  a  part  of  the  hand  baggage.  Two  men 
standing  by  offered  to  mark  it  with  chalk  just  as  the 
inspectors  mark  it  to  show  it  has  been  inspected,  and 
I  was  about  to  allow  them  to  do  it  and  then  hand 
them  over  when  my  wife  came  up  with  the  camera, 
and  they  turned  and  hurried  away,  going  aboard  the 
ship.  1  think  they  were  either  ship's  people,  or  part 
of  the  crew  from  some  other  boat  at  the  North  German 
Lloyd  piers. 

While  we  were  waiting  to  get  an  inspector,  we  had 
time  to  buy  something  to  eat  from  the  fruit  and  cake 
venders.  Though  it  was  mid-October,  five  cents  each 
was  asked  for  apples  to  be  bought  at  any  street  corner 
in  New  York  for  one  cent,  and  ten  cents  a  slice  for  a 
thick  yellow  cake  that  was  the  worst  mess  of  coloring- 
matter,  adulterated  flour,  and  soda,  I  have  ever  set 
my  teeth  into.  It  was  as  heavy  as  a  stone  and 
equally  gritty.  Even  the  Neapolitan  boys  would 
not  eat  it.  On  top  of  all  this,  when  we  paid  for 
it  in  Italian  silver  money,  the  venders  allowed 
only  seventeen  cents  for  a  lire,  when  taking  them  at 
nineteen  cents  would  have  been  at  a  profit.  Many 
baskets  of  such  food  at  such  prices  were  sold  to  the 
immigrants  that  day,  for  we  passed  the  remainder  of 
the  morning  and  part  of  the  afternoon  on  the  dock, 
there  being  four  ships  laden  nearly  as  heavily  as  ours 
in  ahead  of  us,  and  the  barges  run  by  contractors  to 
carry  immigrants  from  the  various  docks  to  Ellis  Island 
had  more  than  they  could  do.  So  we  waited.  Few 
of  the  people  aboard  had  eaten  any  breakfast,  because 
it  was   rumored   among   them   they  would  land  in 


212    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

time  for  breakfast,  and  they  had  been  looking  forward 
to  a  good  meal  on  shore. 

I  think  it  was  about  two  o'clock  when  we  were 
finally  allowed  to  go  aboard  the  barges  at  the  end  of 
the  pier.  I  observed  two  men  following  my  wife  and 
myself  and  surveying  us  critically.  At  the  gangplank 
they  stopped  us  and  examined  our  bit  of  baggage  very 
carefully. 

"You  may  save  yourself  some  inconvenience  by 
telling  us  who  you  are,"  said  the  one  man  very  cour- 
teously to  me. 

"  Who  are  you  ?"  I  said  in  broken  English,  expect- 
ing the  appearance  of  some  grafting  game. 

"I  am  a  special  customs  inspector,  and  we  spotted 
you  two  as  queer.     What  are  you  ?  " 

"We  are  writers  making  a  study  of  the  immigration 
question.     What  did  you  spot  as  queer  ?" 

"We  thought  you  were  dagoes  all  right,  but  this 
lady  is  the  first  woman  I  have  ever  seen  in  the  steer- 
age with  such  well-kept  finger-nails,  and  we  were  a 
little  suspicious." 

In  the  work  of  hustling  the  immigrants  aboard  the 
barges  the  dock  men  displayed  great  unnecessary 
roughness,  sometimes  shoving  them  violently,  prod- 
ding them  with  sticks,  etc.,  and  one  young  Apulian 
who  paused  to  look  around  for  his  father  aroused  the 
ire  of  the  dock  man  nearest  him,  who  planted  a  by  no 
means  gentle  kick  in  his  fundamentals,  observing, — 

"  Oh,  get  down  there;  you  're  too  damned  slow!  " 

One  barge  with  power  and  another  without,  if  I  re- 
member correctly,  were  lashed  together,  or  there  may 
have  been  a  tug  on  the  outer  side  of  the  second  craft. 
Antonio  and  Camela,  with  the  larger  portion  of  the 
party,  were  hustled  into  the  second  barge,  while  my 


WITHIN    THE   PORTALS     213 

wife  and  I  squeezed  into  the  second,  little  Ina  with  us. 
The  great  improvements  in  the  way  of  heating,  seat- 
ing, and  hospital  accommodation  for  the  sick  which 
Commissioner  William  Williams  and  his  assistant 
Allan  Robinson  were  then  making  were  not  yet  in 
evidence  in  the  barge  on  which  we  rode.  We  had 
either  to  squat  on  the  floor  or  sit  on  our  baggage, 
already  mashed  and  crushed  till  the  point  of  utter  dis- 
solution seemed  not  far  away,  so  we  stood  up. 

Slowly  we  steamed  down  the  river  in  mid-after- 
noon, and  when  we  reached  the  slip  at  Ellis  Island  we 
merely  tied  up,  for  there  were  many  barge-loads  ahead 
of  us,  and  we  waited  our  turn  to  be  unloaded  and  ex- 
amined. 

As  the  second  craft  cast  off  and  moved  away,  Ina 
saw  her  mother  and  Antonio  going  with  it,  and  the  big 
tears  came  into  her  lovely  eyes.  She  watched  them 
till  they  were  gone  from  sight,  and  then  turned  away 
so  that  neither  my  wife  nor  I  could  see  her  face. 
Every  now  and  then  her  sleeve  would  go  up  to  her 
face,  but  she  was  very  quiet.  Soon  she  turned  around, 
and  the  signs  of  tears  were  gone,  but  in  a  moment 
she  turned  away  again.  She  was  struggling  bravely 
against  her  wish  to  cry. 

"What  is  the  matter,  Ina?"  said  my  wife  at  last, 
when  the  tears  began  to  roll  faster.  Ina  forced  a  smile 
and  said, — 

"Oh,  nothing  truly,  except  the  sun  hurts  my  eyes." 

Waiting,  waiting,  waiting,  without  food  and  with- 
out water;  or,  if  there  was  water,  we  could  not  get  to 
it  on  account  of  the  crush  of  people.  Children  cried, 
mothers  strove  to  hush  them,  the  musically  inclined 
sang  or  played,  and  then  the  sun  went  down  while 
we  waited  and  still  waited.     My  wife  and  one  of  the 


214    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

boys  had  walked  into  the  space  roped  off  around 
the  plank  which  had  been  put  aboard.  Just  then 
some  of  the  youngsters  who  had  been  trying  to  steal 
off  the  forward  end  of  the  barge,  boylike,  were 
chased  back  by  the  barge  men,  one  of  whom  began 
rushing  and  pushing  the  people  in  the  open  space  back 
into  the  crowd — a  very  needless  procedure,  as  there 
was  no  reason  why  what  room  there  was  should  not 
be  utilized. 

"What  are  you  doing,  mate?"  called  one  of  the 
other  men  outside. 

"Oh,  I'm  driving  these  animals  back,"  and  he 
swore  foully. 

Just  at  that  instant  he  caught  my  wife  by  the  arm, 
menacing  her  and  the  boy  with  a  short  bit  of  board 
he  had  in  his  hand. 

"Take  your  dirty  hands  off  me  this  instant,"  said 
my  wife,  white  with  anger.  The  fellow  stepped 
back,  amazed  at  her  resentment  and  her  English. 

"Meant  no  harm,  lady,"  he  deprecated.  "You've 
got  to  be  rough  with  this  bunch.  I  get  so  sick 
handling  these  dirty  bums  coming  over  here  to  this 
country,  I  'm  going  to  get  in  trouble  some  time  for 
rousting  'em,  I  s'pose." 

"  If  that  is  so,"  she  answered,  "you  had  better  get 
another  job,  for  you  are  not  fit  to  handle  even  wild 
animals,  let  alone  kind-hearted,  sensitive  people  like 
these,  who  are  not  to  be  blamed  if  everything,  even 
your  speech,  is  strange  to  them." 


Rushing  Immigrants  on  Barges — Inspectors  and  Immigrants 

at  Ellis  Island 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THROUGH  ELLIS  ISLAND 

COOPED  up  in  the  barge,  we  waited  till  the  sun 
got  down  into  the  smoke  of  Bayonne  and 
Elizabeth  and  was  a  great  red  ball  only,  so 
dull  that  the  eye  could  contemplate  it  pleasantly. 
Then  came  the  shadows  of  night,  and  we  began  to 
dread  that  our  turn  to  be  disembarked  would  come  so 
late  that  we  should  either  be  taken  back  to  the  steamer 
or  be  kept  on  the  island  until  morning.  Myriads  of 
lights  were  shining  in  the  great  buildings.  Each  time 
the  old  ferry-boat  floundered  across  from  the  Battery 
it  brought  a  crowd  of  friends  of  immigrants  who  had 
been  summoned  from  New  York  and  elsewhere  to 
meet  the  newly  arrived  ones.  All  the  races  of  Europe 
seemed  to  be  represented  in  the  crowds  on  the  ferry- 
boat as  it  passed  close  to  us  when  bound  back  to  the 
Battery. 

The  babies  had  sobbed  themselves  to  sleep,  worn- 
out  mothers  sat  with  their  heads  drooped  on  the  chil- 
dren they  held  to  their  breasts,  and  among  the  men 
mirth  and  song  had  died  away,  though  now  and  then 
a  voice  would  be  heard  inquiring  if  any  one  knew 
when  or  where  we  would  get  something  to  eat. 

"All  ready  for  the  last  Irenes"  sang  out  a  voice 
somewhere  in  the  darkness  up  by  the  buildings,  and 
there  was  a  clatter  of  feet  overhead  and  on  the  wharf. 
The  doors  of  the  barge  were  opened.  The  barge 
hands  dragged  out  the  plank.     The  ropes  restraining 


2i6    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

the  crowd  were  dropped,  and  the  weary  hundreds, 
shouldering  their  baggage  yet  once  again,  poured  out 
of  the  barge  on  to  the  wharf.  Knowing  the  way,  I 
led  those  of  our  group  who  were  with  my  wife  and 
myself  straight  to  the  covered  approach  to  the  grand 
entrance  to  the  building,  and  the  strange  assemblage 
of  Old  World  humanity  streamed  along  behind  us,  an 
interesting  procession  indeed. 

When  we  came  to  the  doorway  I  halted  our  section, 
and  we  piled  the  baggage  and  waited.  Antonio  had 
all  the  papers  for  the  Squadritos,  and  with  him  also 
was  Salvatore  Biajo,  who,  thanks  to  the  short-change 
game  worked  on  him  by  the  draft-sellers  at  Naples, 
must  have  some  money  advanced  to  him  before  we 
got  inside.  If  the  officials  there  saw  me  giving  him 
money  they  would  want  to  know  about  it,  and  I  did 
not  wish  to  attract  attention  to  myself. 

Antonio  and  Camela  were  meantime  madly  hunting 
us  about  the  wharf,  and  just  as  the  official  at  the  door- 
way had  ordered  us  to  go  on  in,  regardless  of  the 
others,  each  party  caught  sight  of  the  other. 

Half-way  up  the  stairs  an  interpreter  stood  telling  the 
immigrants  to  get  their  health  tickets  ready,  and  so  I 
knew  that  Ellis  Island  was  having  "  a  long  day  "  and 
we  were  to  be  passed  upon  even  if  it  took  half  the  night. 
The  majority  of  the  people,  having  their  hands  full  of 
bags,  boxes,  bundles,  and  children,  carried  their  tickets 
in  their  teeth,  and  just  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  stood  a 
young  doctor  in  the  Marine  Hospital  Service  uniform, 
who  took  them,  looked  at  them,  and  stamped  them 
with  the  Ellis  Island  stamp.  Considering  the  frauds 
in  connection  with  these  tickets  at  Naples  and  on 
board,  the  thoroughness  used  with  them  now  was  in- 
deed futile. 


THROUGH   ELLIS   ISLAND     217 

Passing  straight  east  from  the  head  of  the  stairs,  we 
turned  into  the  south  half  of  the  great  registry  floor, 
which  is  divided,  like  the  human  body,  into  two  great 
parts  nearly  alike,  so  that  one  ship's  load  can  be 
handled  on  one  side  and  another  ship's  load  on  the 
other.  In  fact,  as  we  came  up,  a  quantity  of  people  from 
the  north  of  Europe  were  being  examined  in  the  north 
half. 

Turning  into  a  narrow  railed-off  lane,  we  encoun- 
tered another  doctor  in  uniform,  who  lifted  hats  or 
pushed  back  shawls  to  look  for  favus  heads,  keenly 
scrutinized  the  face  and  body  for  signs  of  disease  or 
deformity,  and  passed  us  on.  An  old  man  who  limped 
in  front  of  me,  he  marked  with  a  bit  of  chalk  on  the 
coat  lapel.  At  the  end  of  the  railed  lane  was  a  third 
uniformed  doctor,  a  towel  hanging  beside  him,  a  small 
instrument  over  which  to  turn  up  eyelids  in  his  hand, 
and  back  of  him  basins  of  disinfectants. 

As  we  approached  he  was  examining  a  Molise 
woman  and  her  two  children.  The  youngest  screamed 
with  fear  when  he  endeavored  to  touch  her,  but  with 
a  pat  on  the  cheek  and  a  kindly  word  the  child  was 
quieted  while  he  examined  its  eyes,  looking  for 
trachoma  or  purulent  ophthalmia.  The  second  child 
was  so  obstinate  that  it  took  some  minutes  to  get  it 
examined,  and  then,  having  found  suspicious  con- 
ditions, he  marked  the  woman  with  a  bit  of  chalk,  and 
a  uniformed  official  led  her  and  the  little  ones  to  the  left 
into  the  rooms  for  special  medical  examination.  The  old 
man  who  limped  went  the  same  way,  as  well  as  many 
others.  Those  who  are  found  to  be  suffering  from 
trachoma  are  very  frequently  sent  to  the  hospital  on 
the  Island  and  are  held  and  treated  until  "cured." 
There  is  neither  space  nor  excuse  for  discussing  here 


2i8    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

the  question  of  "curing"  in  a  few  days  or  weeks 
cases  of  trachomatous  conjunctivitis.  The  powers  at 
Washington  have  ruled  that  immigrants  may  be  held 
and  cured,  though  there  are  surgeons  at  Ellis  Island 
who  do  not  believe  in  it,  and  the  best  specialists  in 
New  York  contend  that  months  or  years  are 
necessary  to  eliminate  any  danger  of  contagion,  while 
the  Massachusetts  Eye  and  Ear  Infirmary  experiments 
in  Boston  have  convinced  the  doctors  there  that  cures 
are  the  exception. 

Concetta  Fomica  was  the  only  one  of  our  party 
whom  the  doctors  examined  more  than  once.  Her 
eyes  were  inflamed  slightly,  but  she  was  passed.  Just 
where  we  turned  to  the  right,  a  stern-looking  woman 
inspector,  with  the  badge,  stood  looking  at  all  the 
women  who  came  up  to  seiect  any  whose  moral  char- 
acter might  be  questioned,  and  one  of  her  procedures 
was  to  ask  each  party  as  to  the  various  relationships 
of  the  men  and  women  in  it.     Her  Italian  was  good. 

Passing  west,  we  came  to  the  waiting-rooms,  in 
which  the  groups  which  are  entered  on  each  sheet  of 
the  manifest  are  held  until  K  sheet  or  L  sheet,  whatever 
their  letter  may  be,  is  reached.  Our  party  being  so 
large,  and  some  of  the  declarations  which  are  used  to 
fill  out  the  items  on  the  manifest  having  been  made 
at  Messina,  some  at  Reggio  di  Calabria,  and  some 
at  Naples,  we  were  scattered  through  U,  V,  and  W 
groups. 

We  sank  down  on  the  wooden  benches,  thankful  to 
get  seats  once  more.  Our  eyes  pained  severely  for 
some  few  minutes  as  a  result  of  the  turning  up  of  the 
lids,  but  the  pain  passed. 

Somewhere  about  nine  o'clock  an  official  came  by 
and   hurried   out  U  group  and  passed  it  up  into  line 


Stairway  of  Separation — Checking  into  Pens 


THROUGH   ELLIS   ISLAND     219 

along  the  railed  way  which  led  up  to  the  inspector  who 
had  U  sheet,  then  came  V  group,  and  then  W. 
Knowing  that  the  first  into  line  would  be  the  first 
passed,  and  having  the  task  of  gathering  our  people 
together  out  of  the  crowd  as  fast  as  they  were 
passed,  my  wife  and  I  hurried  to  the  end  of  the 
lane  and  were  among  the  first  before  the  inspector. 
Our  papers  were  all  straight,  we  were  correctly 
entered  on  the  manifest,  and  had  abundant  money,  had 
been  passed  by  the  doctors,  and  were  properly  destined 
to  New  York,  and  so  were  passed  in  less  than  one 
minute.  We  were  classed  as  "New  York  Outsides  " 
to  distinguish  us  from  the  "  New  York  Detained,"  who 
await  the  arrival  of  friends  to  receive  them;  "Rail- 
roads," who  go  to  the  stations  for  shipment;  and  "  S. 
I.'s,"  by  which  is  meant  those  unfortunates  who  are 
subjected  to  Special  Inquiry  in  the  semi-secret  Special 
Inquiry  Court,  which  is  the  preliminary  to  being  sent 
back,  though  of  course  only  a  portion  of  "  S.  I.'s  "  are 
sent  back. 

By  the  kindness  of  the  official  at  the  head  of  the 
stairs  by  which  we  would  ordinarily  have  passed 
down  and  out  to  the  ferry  to  take  us  to  New  York,  we 
were  allowed  to  drop  our  baggage  behind  a  post,  and, 
standing  out  of  the  way  of  the  crowd,  pick  out  our 
people  as  they  filtered  through  past  the  inspectors. 
Salvatore  Biajo  came  through  marked  "  Railroad,"  and 
was  passed  along  to  get  his  railroad-ticket  order 
stamped,  his  money  exchanged  at  the  stand  kept  be- 
side the  stairs  under  contract  by  Post  &  Flagg,  bankers, 
and  in  a  minute  more  he  had  been  moved  on  down 
the  stairs  to  the  railroad  room,  after  I  had  had  but  the 
barest  word  with  him.  Antonio  Genone,  with  a  ticket 
for  Philadelphia,  came  through  without  going  over  to 


220    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

the  right  to  the  railroad-ticket  stamping  official,  and  he 
was  down  the  stairs  and  gone  without  even  knowing 
that  he  was  separated  from  us  permanently. 

We  began  to  see  why  the  three  stairways  are  called 
"The  Stairs  of  Separation."  To  their  right  is  the 
money  exchange,  to  the  left  are  the  Special  Inquiry 
Room  and  the  telegraph  offices.  Here  family  parties 
with  different  destinations  are  separated  without  a 
minute's  warning,  and  often  never  see  each  other  again. 
It  seems  heartless,  but  it  is  the  only  practical  system, 
for  if  allowance  was  made  for  good-byes  the  examina- 
tion and  distribution  process  would  be  blocked  then 
and  there  by  a  dreadful  crush.  Special  officers  would 
be  necessary  to  tear  relatives  forcibly  from  each  other's 
arms.  The  stairs  to  the  right  lead  to  the  railroad  room, 
where  tickets  are  arranged,  baggage  checked  and 
cleared  from  customs,  and  the  immigrants  loaded  on 
boats  to  be  taken  to  the  various  railroad  stations  for 
shipment  to  different  parts  of  the  country.  The  cen- 
tral stair  leads  to  the  detention  rooms,  where  immigrants 
are  held  pending  the  arrival  of  friends.  The  left 
descent  is  for  those  free  to  go  out  to  the  ferry. 

Our  Socosa  boys,  despite  their  labor  contracts,  came 
through  bound  for  the  railroad  room,  and  they  were 
gone,  waving  their  hands  and  throwing  kisses  to  us. 
Then  the  Gualtieri-Sicamino  people,  even  Antonio, 
who  had  completely  lost  control  of  the  situation, 
came  through,  marked  "Detained."  I  was  allowed 
to  collect  them,  that  was  all;  as  soon  as  they  were 
assembled  they  went  down  the  middle  stairs.  As 
soon  as  the  women  found  they  were  to  be  shut  up 
behind  the  screens  of  steel,  they  began  to  bewail 
their  fortune,  and  between  getting  them  quieted  and 
getting  a   proper  understanding  of  just  why  it  had 


THROUGH   ELLIS   ISLAND     221 

happened  so,  I  had  a  lively  five  minutes.  It  seemed 
certain  that  all  but  my  wife  and  myself  must  go  be- 
hind the  bars. 

Having  passed  the  last  barrier  and  got  all  the  infor- 
mation I  wanted  on  Ellis  Island  from  the  immigrants' 
point  of  view,  it  seemed  time  to  declare  myself,  and  so 
I  informed  the  night  chief  inspector  who  I  was  and 
why  I  was  there,  and  requested  that  he  discharge  all 
our  people  to  me,  so  that  I  could  take  them  over  to 
New  York,  as  I  wanted  to  get  the  story  of  their  first 
impressions  on  American  soil  by  being  with  them 
when  they  landed  in  the  greatest  American  city.  The 
officials  were  highly  amused  and  interested  in  the 
whole  affair,  showed  me  every  courtesy,  and  in  five 
minutes  I  was  below  at  the  gate  of  the  detention  room 
with  a  written  order  for  the  entire  party,  except  the 
"  Railroads,"  to  be  discharged  to  me;  they  were  al- 
ready gone. 

I  found  our  people  just  preparing  to  sit  down  at  one 
of  the  great  number  of  tables  to  have  one  of  the  sub- 
stantial meals  which  are  served  to  immigrants;  but 
time  was  pressing,  and  so  the  boys  got  only  a  bite  and 
that  by  grabbing  it  and  taking  it  with  them.  Antonio 
was  not  to  be  found,  and  after  a  long  search  I  ascer- 
tained that  he  had  convinced  the  obliging  chief  clerk 
of  the  detention  room  that  he  could  take  care  of  him- 
self in  New  York  and  had  got  himself  discharged, 
leaving  the  entire  party  behind.  I  caught  up  with 
him  before  he  got  aboard  the  ferry-boat,  and,  as  I 
brought  him  back,  got  a  glimpse  into  the  waiting-room, 
where  friends  of  immigrants  expected  to  arrive,  or 
witnesses  called  to  testify  before  the  Special  Inquiry 
Court  wait  until  they  are  summoned  and  hear  the 
names  of  their  friends  read,  after  which  they  pass  up 


222    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

to  the  court  room  above,  or  into  the  room  to  the  west 
on  the  same  floor,  where  they  have  their  friends  re- 
leased to  them  and  take  them  away. 

The  more  I  saw  of  the  inside  of  the  great  system  on 
the  Island  the  more  I  was  struck  with  its  thoroughness 
and  the  kindly,  efficient  manner  in  which  the  law  was 
enforced.  If  undesirable  immigrants  are  pouring  into 
the  United  States  through  Ellis  Island,  it  is  not  because 
the  laws  are  not  strict  enough,  or  the  finest  system 
that  human  ingenuity  can  devise  for  handling  large 
masses  is  not  brought  into  full  play  by  honest  and 
conscientious  officials,  to  pick  out  the  bad  from  the 
good.  The  whole  trouble  is  that  the  undesirable  im- 
migrant comes  up  before  the  honest,  intelligent  official 
with  a  lie  so  carefully  prepared  that  the  official  is  help- 
less when  he  has  nothing  on  which  to  rely  but  the  tes- 
timony of  the  immigrant  and  his  friends.  Only  in  the 
home  town  can  the  truth  be  learned  and  the  proper 
discrimination  made.     Any  other  plan  is  fallacious. 

At  last  we  were  reassembled.  The  women  had 
dried  their  tears.  Under  the  inspiration  of  being  at 
last  within  the  barrier,  of  being  about  to  step  on 
American  soil  and  untrammeled,  the  party  seemed  to 
cast  off  its  weariness,  and  we  passed  out  of  the  huge 
building,  around  to  the  ferry-boat,  and  aboard. 

In  the  ferry  house  we  saw  a  number  of  young  Irish 
girls  who  were  under  the  care  of  a  priest  and  were 
being  taken  to  the  Mission  of  Our  Lady  of  the  Rosary, 
an  institution  that  looks  after  immigrant  girls  who 
come  over  to  be  servants.  Large  numbers  of  the  peo- 
ple who  had  been  with  us  on  the  Prin^essin  Irene  also 
appeared,  tagged  with  a  yellow  ticket,  and  under  the 
leadership  of  an  official  from  the  Society  for  the  Pro- 
tection of  Italian  immigrants.     As  we  went  aboard, 


Excluded  for  Age — Waiting  for  Immigrant  Friends 


THROUGH   ELLIS   ISLAND     223 

this  official,  with  one  or  two  helpers,  stood  by  the 
doorway  to  one  of  the  side  compartments,  and  when 
one  of  his  people  appeared  he  seized  the  immigrant 
and  thrust  him  quickly  into  the  cabin,  thus  getting  the 
crowd  together.  Then  noses  were  counted  and  all 
were  found  to  be  present.  There  are  numbers  of  mis- 
sionaries and  protection  societies,  all  very  necessary  for 
the  shielding  of  greenhorns  from  the  sharks  that  lie  in 
wait  for  them  about  the  Battery.  Formerly  immigrant 
girls  were  kidnapped  by  scores,  and  literally  kept  pris- 
oners in  evil  resorts;  and  men  were  taken  into  quarters 
of  the  city  where  it  was  easy  to  rob  them  of  all  they 
possessed,  and  they  could  not  even  tell  the  police 
where  it  happened. 

When  Antonio's  eldest  brother  arrived  in  New  York, 
he  was  discharged  to  a  friend  of  Antonio,  who  accom- 
panied him  safely  ashore,  and,  having  other  things 
demanding  his  attention,  thought  it  wise  to  put 
Giuseppe  into  a  carriage  and  send  him  to  the  Grand 
Central  Station.  They  bargained  with  a  cabman  stand- 
ing at  South  Ferry  to  take  Giuseppe  and  his  baggage 
for  $1.50,  and  Giuseppe  got  in.  As  soon  as  the  cab 
was  out  of  sight  of  the  Battery  and  of  the  friend  who 
had  met  him,  Giuseppe  was  astounded  by  the  cab- 
man's stopping  and  demanding  a  dollar  more  before 
he  would  drive  on.  After  a  futile  argument  in  sign 
talk,  and  with  a  great  waste  of  language  which  neither 
understood,  Giuseppe  succumbed  and  paid  the  dollar. 
In  ten  minutes  more  the  cabman  stopped  and  demanded 
another  two  dollars.  Ten  minutes  later  he  had  that 
also.  Just  about  the  time  he  knew  he  must  be  close 
to  the  station,  Giuseppe  received  another  demand,  this 
time  of  three  dollars.  He  did  not  have  it,  and  after  a 
violent  scene  with  the  cabman,  who  threatened  to  beat 


224    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

him  with  the  butt  of  his  whip,  Giuseppe  burst  into 
tears,  overcome  with  the  feeling  of  being  alone  in  a 
strange  land  and  the  helpless  victim  of  such  a  villain. 
He  decided  to  climb  out  and  try  to  find  his  way  to  the 
station,  so  he  shouldered  his  baggage  and  trudged  off 
to  the  north,  for  he  knew  the  station  lay  that  way. 
The  cabman  whipped  up  and  disappeared.  Finally, 
after  asking  scores  of  people  where  the  station 
was,  and  being  laughed  at  by  some  and  pitied  by 
others,  he  met  a  little  girl  who  understood  Italian,  and 
she  pointed  out  the  way.  He  was  only  two  blocks 
distant. 

There  had  been  no  one  to  meet  Giuseppe  Rota,  and 
he  would  have  been  held  in  the  Island  until  his  rela- 
tives could  be  communicated  with.  He  nearly  wept 
at  the  prospect  of  being  alone,  and  so  I  brought  him 
with  us.  He  was  afraid  to  go  five  feet  away  from  me 
on  the  ferry-boat. 

As  we  docked  at  the  Barge  Office  we  had  a  slight 
wait  until  the  returning  officials,  visitors,  and  better- 
class  passengers  on  the  deck  overhead  could  be  let  off, 
and  then  we  were  released.  We  passed  through  the 
huge  piles  of  immigrants'  baggage,  to  which  we  must 
return  on  the  morrow  to  get  the  heavy  pieces  of  our 
own,  and  out  to  the  street. 

There  was  the  stretch  of  Battery  Park,  the  looming 
buildings  about  Bowling  Green  and  on  State  Street,  a 
real  Broadway  car,  and  a  fine  L  train  roaring  north  on 
Sixth  Avenue  tracks,  boys  with  ten-o'clock  extras,  and 
a  thousand  things  that  told  us  we  were  back  home, 
once  again  in  the  best  place  of  all.  I  was  at  the  head 
of  the  party  leading  the  way  to  a  Broadway  car,  for  it 
was  useless  to  try  to  go  up  on  the  "  L"  with  all  our 
encumbrances,  and  looked  back  at  my  wife.     She  was 


THROUGH   ELLIS   ISLAND     225 

looking  up  at  the  trees  and  the  buildings,  and  she  said 
gently,  "  Thank  God !     Thank  God !  " 

The  car  we  took  was  entirely  empty  but  for  our- 
selves, and  when  we  were  inside  with  our  luggage  it 
looked  like  a  baggage  car.  Weary  as  our  people  were, 
their  eyes  were  wide  with  wonder  at  all  they  saw,  and 
as  we  swung  around  into  Broadway  and  started  up 
town  I  saw  in  Concetta's  eyes  that  wild  look  of  the 
"  startled  fawn  "  as  she  contemplated  the  great  canon, 
flanked  by  buildings,  into  which  we  were  rushing. 
She  shrank  from  each  sudden  accentuation  of  the  noise 
of  the  street. 

People  began  to  get  on  the  car.  They  stared  at  us 
and  made  audible  comments,  little  thinking  that  some 
of  us  understood. 

"Oh,  what  dirty,  dirty  wretches,"  said  a  woman, 
with  a  worn  seal-plush  sacque,  as  she  looked  at  our 
women. 

"  I  don't  see  why  they  let  these  lousy  dagoes  ride  on 
the  same  cars  other  people  have  to  use,"  observed  a 
stout  gentleman  with  gold-framed  glasses  as  he  shrank 
back  from  Gaetano  Mullura,  who  had  tried  to  change 
his  seat  and  was  plunging  down  the  aisle  owing  to  a 
sudden  jerk  of  the  car. 

Ere  long  we  came  to  Bleecker  Street,  and,  knowing 
there  were  several  hotels  in  the  vicinity  below  middle 
class,  the  only  sort  at  which  we  stood  a  chance  of 
being  admitted,  we  alighted,  and  I  went  in  to  the  desk 
to  see  if  I  could  get  a  half-dozen  rooms.  Three  times 
I  was  met  with  the  excuse,  "  We  are  all  full,"  though 
I  could  plainly  see  that  the  room  board  was  but  half 
covered  with  slips.  At  each  of  the  hotels  we  created 
a  stir.  As  I  turned  away  from  the  last  desk  the  clerk 
observed  to  the  cashier: 


226    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

"  Well,  what  do  you  think  of  that  for  nerve  ?" 

"  What 's  that  ?  "  said  the  cashier,  who  had  been  busy. 

"Why,  that  dago  coming  in  here  with  a  push  like 
that,  trying  to  get  rooms." 

Beginning  to  get  a  little  exasperated,  I  led  the  way 
west  into  the  Italian  quarter,  and  we  successively  tried 
the  Italian  hotels, — Hotel  di  Campidoglio,  Hotel  di 
France,  and  one  other.  All  refused  us  admittance. 
By  this  time  there  was  not  a  member  of  the  party  who 
was  not  exhausted,  so,  gathering  them  together  in  the 
shelter  of  a  building  in  the  course  of  construction,  and 
leaving  my  wife  in  charge,  Antonio  and  I  went  hunting 
a  roof  for  the  heads  of  all  of  us.  It  was  an  hour  later 
when  we  mounted  the  steps  at  the  same  house  in 
which  my  wife  and  I  had  lived.  It  seemed  ages  since 
we  had  left  the  portal,  but  the  good  Signora  Tonella 
was  there,  looking  just  the  same,  and  when  she  found 
out  who  it  was  under  the  dirt  and  the  Italian  clothes 
she  offered  the  three  small  rooms  she  had,  and,  having 
no  other  chance,  we  accepted.  Going  back  to  the 
Hotel  di  Campidoglio,  I  persuaded  the  proprietor  to 
allow  us  to  go  into  the  rear  of  the  dining-room  and 
get  something  to  eat.  It  took  the  sight  of  money  to 
induce  him.  The  waiter  was  angry  at  being  requested 
to  serve  us,  and  slammed  plates  and  things  on  the 
table.     A  little  silver  acted  as  a  sedative  to  his  nerves. 

Poor  little  Ina  went  to  sleep  with  a  spoon  in  her 
mouth,  and  every  person  at  the  two  large  tables  was 
exhausted,  it  was  plain  to  see.  But,  with  full  stom- 
achs once  more,  we  took  up  the  last  stage  of  the 
journey,  and,  shouldering  our  baggage,  made  our  way 
the  several  blocks  to  147  West  Houston  Street. 

Not  one  of  the  three  rooms  had  a  full-sized  bed  in  it, 
and  but  one  had  space  enough  to  spread  a  bed  on  the 


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THROUGH   ELLIS    ISLAND     227 

floor,  yet  after  a  distressing  half  hour  I  got  the  fifteen 
persons  still  with  us  parceled  out  into  the  three  rooms, 
all  except  Giuseppe  Rota,  who  was  number  sixteen. 
Try  as  I  would,  I  was  unable  to  find  room  for  him  to 
stretch  his  hulking  frame  unless  he  took  to  the  door- 
steps, so  I  escorted  him  over  to  the  Branch  of  the  So- 
ciety for  the  Protection  of  Italian  Immigrants,  a  few 
doors  west,  and  put  him  up  there.  When  he  found  he 
was  to  be  left  alone,  he  burst  out  crying  and  declared 
he  would  never  see  his  uncle  in  Newark  again.  I  reas- 
sured him,  and  told  him  I  would  come  and  get  him  on 
the  morrow.  I  remember  leaving  the  place,  and  it  is  a 
fact  I  was  so  worn  that,  going  back  to  the  house,  set- 
tling the  others  for  the  night,  and  turning  in  myself, 
left  no  impression  on  my  memory,  and  I  cannot  say 
what  happened. 

We  slept  until  after  noon  the  next  day,  and  then 
began  the  process  of  assembling  all  the  baggage,  clear- 
ing it  from  the  customs,  and  of  dispersing  the  remnant 
of  our  party  to  their  various  destinations. 

Explanation  of  the  illustration  entitled,  "  The  Immigrants' 
Track  Through  Ellis  Island"  facing  this  page : 

A.  Immigrants  landed  from  barges  enter  by  these  stairs. 

B.  Surgeon  examines  health  tickets. 

C.  Surgeon  examines  head  and  body. 

D.  Surgeon  examines  eyes.     Suspects  go  to  left  for  further  exami- 

nation. 

E.  Female  inspector  looking  for  prostitutes. 

F.  Group  enters  and  sits  in  pen  corresponding  to  ticket  letter  or 

number. 

G.  Inspector  examines  on  twenty-two  questions. 
H.  Into  special  inquiry  court. 

I.    Stamping  railroad  ticket  orders. 

J.    Money  exchange  and  telegraph  office. 

K.  To  railroad  pen. 

L.  To  New  York  pen. 

M.  To  the  ferry  and  New  York. 

N.  Telegraph  office. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE     DISPERSION 

HEN  I  went  to  get  Giuseppe  Rota,  I  found 
the  officials  at  the  immigrant  home  were 
very  loath  to  let  him  go.  He  was  seated  at 
one  of  the  long  tables  of  the  big  barracks-like  house, 
with  forty  other  men,  women,  and  children,  and  was 
enjoying  a  hearty  meal,  notwithstanding  his  anxiety  as 
to  his  ultimate  fate.  Since  he  had  got  into  their  hands 
the  management  was  chary  of  relinquishing  him  to  me, 
even  though  I  had  committed  him,  and  poor  Giuseppe 
protested  volubly  that  I  had  been  more  than  a  father  to 
him,  and  that  his  only  hope  of  reaching  his  uncle  was 
through  me.  After  a  tiresome  explanation  I  signed  a 
receipt  for  him  and  gave  references  for  myself,  which 
were  promptly  looked  up,  and  then  we  were  allowed 
to  depart. 

The  next  task  was  to  find  Ferruchio  Vazzana,  a 
Gualtieri  man  who  at  that  time  had  a  small  store  on 
East  Fifteenth  Street  near  Second  Avenue,  and  to  whom 
Nunzio  Giunta  was  "raccomended";  then  Tommaso 
Figaro,  a  painter  from  Gualtieri,  who  would  be  spon- 
sor for  Nicola  Curro.  His  address  was  520  East  Four- 
teenth Street.  Nicola  and  Nunzio  went  with  Antonio 
and  me,  and  we  had  barely  entered  the  Italian  district 
of  that  part  of  the  city  when  two  or  three  men  from 
different  directions  came  flying  toward  us,  throwing 
their  arms  about  Nunzio,  Nicola,  and  Antonio.  They 
were  all  Gualtieri  people,  and  in  a  few  minutes  I  found 


THE   DISPERSION  229 

myself  outside  of  an  excited  throng  centred  about  the 
newcomers  and  talking  at  a  rate  that  left  me  entirely  in 
the  dark  as  to  what  was  being  said.  When  they  did 
remember  me,  the  boys  found  great  difficulty  in  ex- 
plaining how  I,  an  "  American  proper,"  came  to  be  so 
closely  associated  with  them,  and  I  noticed  a  marked 
cooling  of  the  enthusiasm  among  the  people  about. 
They  were  extremely  suspicious  of  me. 

In  the  crowd  were  two  brothers  of  Tommaso  Figaro, 
and  they  led  the  way  to  his  little  two-roomed  home, 
for  the  first  of  a  series  of  visits  about  the  tenements  of 
the  neighborhood,  among  old  friends  from  the  village, 
which  I  was  compelled  to  terminate  at  last  by  drag- 
ging Antonio  away  and  starting  for  Ellis  Island  to  look 
after  the  baggage.  Nicola  and  Nunzio  were  left  in  the 
midst  of  their  friends,  who  were  chaffing  them,  calling 
them  "greenhorns,"  and  poking  fun  at  their  "old- 
country  "  clothes.  We  met  other  lately  arrived  immi- 
grants, some  who  had  been  with  us  on  the  Prin^essin 
Irene,  and  pressure  was  being  brought  on  them  to  get 
them  to  lay  aside  the  attire  which  marked  them  as  new 
arrivals.  A  month  later  Nunzio  and  Nicola  did  not 
look  like  the  same  men. 

When  we  arrived  at  the  Barge  Office,  Mike  Delaney, 
the  veteran  Battery  policeman,  who  has  handled  mil- 
lions of  immigrants,  was  lining  up  the  aspettati  to 
go  on  board  the  boat  which  was  substituting  for  the 
old  John  G.  Carlisle,  she  having  broken  down  at  last, 
and  we  found  ourselves  jammed  among  hundreds.  It 
happened  that  the  morning  newspapers  had  had  arti- 
cles concerning  the  arrival  of  our  party,  and  wherever 
we  went  the  word  was  passed  among  the  immigration 
officials  that  Antonio  and  I  were  the  leaders  of  the 
group. 


230     IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

We  found  that  a  part  of  the  baggage  had  already 
been  sent  to  the  pier  of  the  Stonington  Line,  but  some 
of  the  trunks  had  heavy  customs  charges  against  them, 
and  the  owners,  Concetta,  Nastasia,  and  Pulejo  must 
sign  the  papers  in  Boston.  We  contrived  to  get 
through  in  time  to  catch  the  second  boat  back,  and 
only  emerged  at  all  from  the  tangle  of  checking,  ex- 
pressing, and  receipting  at  the  Barge  Office  by  the 
kindly  aid  of  the  officials  there.  I  found  myself  won- 
dering how  the  immigrants  who  persist  in  bringing 
such  confused  quantities  of  baggage  ever  get  it  to  its 
destination  at  all,  and  was  thankful  that  our  troubles 
with  our  impedimenta  were  about  over.  Vain  was  my 
fancy,  for  there  are  tracers  out  for  some  of  it  yet. 

On  the  returning  boat  I  had  an  interesting  talk  with 
a  Russian  Jew  by  the  name  of  Mottet  Ianjge,  who  had 
just  arrived.  He  came  from  near  Odessa  and  had  been 
met  by  his  brother,  a  hatmaker  employed  by  a  Wa- 
verley  Place  firm,  who  acted  as  interpreter  for  us. 

Mottet  had  just  finished  his  term  of  enforced  service 
in  the  Russian  army,  and  had  more  than  once  been  com- 
pelled to  act  in  procedures  against  his  own  people, 
whom  he  said  were  driven  about  from  pillar  to  post 
by  the  Russian  authorities  in  a  way  that  made  Amer- 
ica seem  like  a  heaven  to  them;  and  when  letters  came 
from  their  relatives  here,  telling  them  of  how  free  and 
easy  life  was,  they  were  wild  to  escape  from  their  sur- 
roundings, and  many  more  would  have  followed  his 
example  but  for  the  fact  that  officially  circulated  reports 
hinted  of  strange  dangers  and  hardships  which  the  im- 
migrants must  undergo.  Before  he  entered  the  army 
he  had  been  working  for  a  farmer  who  paid  him  about 
$2.50  a  week.  The  farmers  through  all  that  part  of 
the  country  owned  their  own  land,  and  their  farms  av- 


Mr.   Broughton    Brandenburg,    as    He    Looked    when   He 
Passed  through  Ellis  Island  as  an  Immigrant 


THE   DISPERSION  231 

eraged  in  size  from  forty  to  fifty  acres.  Mortgages  on 
these  farms  were  increasing  in  number,  and  many  of 
them  were  held  by  wealthy  Jews  in  the  towns.  In  the 
army  Mottet  averred  his  pay  was  forty-five  cents  per 
month,  and  his  treatment  was  of  the  roughest  sort. 
He  was  in  fine  physical  condition,  though,  and  looked 
forward  to  his  work  in  this  country  with  great  eager- 
ness. 

He  pointed  out  to  me  a  man,  twenty  years  older  than 
himself,  heavily  bearded,  wearing  the  odd  Russian  cap, 
and  with  boots  to  his  knees,  whom  he  said  had 
been  cruelly  treated  by  the  Christians  in  his  village, 
and  had  lost  all  his  property  through  fire,  as  well  as  his 
wife  and  daughter.  His  only  son  was  a  conscript, 
and  his  father  did  not  even  know  where  he  was,  so  he 
had  borrowed  enough  money  to  come  to  America  to 
begin  life  over  again  at  the  commencement  of  his  old 
age. 

By  using  great  haste  we  got  the  party  assembled 
and  down  to  the  Stonington  Line  pier  in  time  to  catch 
the  night  boat.  I  had  intended  to  go  with  the  Squad- 
ritos  to  Stonington,  to  see  them  entirely  through  to 
their  destination,  but  an  unforeseen  obstacle  arose  in 
the  form  of  Giuseppe  Rota.  Because  he  refused  to  be 
left  alone  to  look  after  himself,  1  had  been  lugging  him 
about  all  the  latter  end  of  the  afternoon,  and  when  we 
made  our  way  down  to  the  boat  it  suddenly  occurred 
to  me  that  if  I  went  to  Stonington  1  must  either  take 
him  along,  leave  him  standing  in  the  darkness  on  the 
pier,  or  find  some  one  to  take  care  of  him.  It  seemed 
easy  enough  to  call  a  messenger  boy,  but  when  the  uni- 
formed mitearrivedand  1  committedGiuseppeto  his  care 
to  be  taken  back  to  147  West  Houston  Street,  Giuseppe 
raised  his  voice  to  heaven  and  bellowed  like  a  bull, 


232     IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

clinging  about  my  shoulders  and  protesting  that  he 
was  afraid  I  was  sending  him  away  to  lose  him,  so 
that  he  might  never  see  his  uncle  or  any  of  his  compad- 
res  from  Avellino  again,  and  if  I  did  he  vowed  he 
would  end  all  his  suspense  and  suffering  by  plunging 
off  into  the  dark  river  then  and  there,  so  I  dismissed  the 
messenger  and  took  the  party  aboard,  bade  them  good- 
bye for  a  short  time,  and  took  Giuseppe  home  again. 

The  group  was  quartered  in  the  steerage  compart- 
ments forward,  which  are  often  filled  with  two  or 
three  hundred  immigrants,  and  inasmuch  as  they 
knew  they  would  arrive  in  Stonington  about  two 
o'clock  the  next  morning,  they  refused  to  try  to  get 
any  sleep,  but  sat  about  talking  and  singing  while  the 
boat  ploughed  up  the  Sound.  Ina,  however,  went  to 
sleep  in  her  mother's  arms,  and  her  mother  alternately 
laughed  and  cried,  and  hugged  and  kissed  the  sleeping 
child  as  she  thought  of  the  diminishing  hours  that 
separated  her  from  her  husband. 

There  were  many  other  Italians  aboard,  all  bound  to 
the  New  England  manufacturing  towns,  and  they 
made  merry  on  the  way,  and  related  the  wonders 
which  they  had  seen  so  far  in  the  great  new  country. 

At  last  the  big  whistle  sounded  in  a  long  blast,  and 
the  boat  slowed  down.  Soon  she  was  bumping 
against  the  pier,  and  an  officer  was  routing  out  the  im- 
migrants and  getting  them  ashore. 

Antonio  and  Giovanni  Pulejo  were  the  first  on  deck, 
and  as  they  appeared  at  the  end  of  the  plank  a  wild 
shout  went  up  from  a  black  group  in  the  shadow,  and 
they  heard  the  familiar  voices  of  Giuseppe,  Tommaso, 
and  Carlino  calling  their  names  through  the  darkness. 

Soon  all  were  ashore  and  mingling  in  a  wild  scene 
of  embracing  and  kissing,  men  and  women,  men  and 


THE   DISPERSION  233 

men,  women  and  women.  When  Camela  had  Giu- 
seppe's arms  about  her  at  last,  all  she  could  do  was  to 
lay  her  tired  head  on  his  shoulder  and  weep,  while  Ina 
stood  at  one  side  gazing  with  wonder  on  the  strange, 
handsome  man  who  was  her  father.  She  was  having 
her  first  sight  of  him  that  she  could  remember,  and 
preferred  to  take  as  good  a  survey  as  she  could  get  in 
the  dim  light,  from  a  point  outside  of  the  zone  of  em- 
braces.    When  she  had  a  chance  she  said  to  Concetta, 

"  1  thought  he  was  three  times  bigger  than  that,  but 
he  is  nice." 

At  last  the  party  formed  a  procession,  with  Antonio 
and  his  happy  wife  in  the  lead,  and  marched  up  from 
the  dock  to  the  substantial  old  house  on  Water  Street, 
on  the  first  floor  of  which,  fronting  on  the  street,  An- 
tonio had  his  barber  shop.  He  found  that  during  his 
absence  his  brothers  had  had  a  disagreement  about 
affairs  in  the  shop,  and  Carlino  had  gone  off  to  work 
for  another  barber.  Carlino's  welcome,  while  warm 
enough,  had  a  certain  bitter  tang  in  it  which  was  the 
result  of  his  acquired  disdain  of  anything  Italian,  and 
his  lack  of  sympathy  for  the  things  at  home  which 
made  up  the  principal  subject  of  interest  in  the  family 
party  just  then.  He  has  pronounced  himself  as  ail- 
American,  and  says  he  will  never  go  back  to  Italy,  no 
matter  what  happens,  not  even  for  a  visit. 

It  was  some  hours  yet  before  the  final  separation  of 
the  last  of  the  family  party  when  Concetta,  Nastasia, 
Giovanni,  and  Felicia  Pulejo,  and  Gaetano  Mullura 
should  take  the  train  for  Boston,  and  it  was  passed  in 
excited  chatter  concerning  all  that  had  occurred  since 
they  had  last  met. 

Shortly  after  daybreak  the  Boston  party,  weary  be- 
yond expression,  got  aboard  the  coaches  provided  for 


234    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

immigrants  at  the  dock,  and  were  whirled  away.  I 
had  telegraphed  Stefano  Smedele  and  the  other  Har- 
rison Street  friends  what  hour  they  would  arrive,  and 
there  was  another  joyful  reception  at  South  Station, 
and  another  trip  through  a  bewildering  confusing  city 
to  the  Italian  quarter,  where  the  last  group  of  the 
party  was  subdivided. 

Concetta  is  now  living  in  the  home  of  her  uncle,  and 
six  months  have  served  to  make  a  great  change  in  her. 
She  has  a  new  spirit,  a  new  gayety  and  independence, 
and  at  my  last  news  from  her  there  are  about  twenty 
young  Italians  in  and  about  Harrison  Street  who  are' 
madly  in  love  with  her,  and  from  all  I  hear  it  will  not 
be  long  before  she  makes  a  choice  and  has  a  home  of 
her  own.  The  chances  are  in  favor  of  a  fine  young 
fellow  who  is  employed  in  one  of  the  factories  as  a 
machine  hand. 

Giovanni  Pulejo  is  working  as  a  barber  in  one  of  the 
South  Boston  shops,  and  Felicia  is  in  one  of  the  great 
shoe-factories  at  Lynn,  Massachusetts.  He  says  he 
finds  the  enormous  machine  process  there  very 
different  from  the  handwork  at  the  little  benches  in 
front  of  Merlino  Carmelo's  shop  back  in  Gualtieri. 

Nastasia  is  helping  his  uncle,  and  is  going  to  have  a 
better  education  than  he  has.  All  have  melted  into 
the  life  of  the  Italian  colony  in  Boston  with  an  ease 
and  an  adaptability  that  are  truly  remarkable,  and  now 
that  they  have  learned  enough  English  to  understand 
what  is  said  to  them  and  to  make  some  answer,  they 
are  beginning  to  enjoy  life.  The  younger  people 
suffered  severely  from  the  unaccustomed  cold  of  the 
winter,  but  all  have  survived  it,  and  I  really  think 
Concetta  and  Nastasia  are  the  better  for  it. 

When  Giuseppe  Rota  and  I  left  the  Stonington  pier. 


Stonington — The  Barber-shop — The  Squadrito  House 


THE   DISPERSION  235 

he  was  in  a  wretched  state  because  he  realized  that  he 
had  kept  me  from  carrying  out  my  plans,  but  I  reas- 
sured him,  and  when  we  reached  home  my  wife  and  I 
took  him  out  to  the  best  restaurant  to  which  we  could 
presume  to  go  in  our  poor  attire,  and  gave  him  what 
he  said  was  the  best  dinner  he  had  ever  eaten.  The 
pleasure  which  the  poor  peasant  lad  took  in  all  that  he 
saw  and  heard  about  him  is  only  partly  expressed  in 
a  sentence  from  a  letter  which  he  sent  back  to  the 
folks  at  home  in  Avellino  and  came,  round  about,  back 
to  me: 

"The  signor  and  signora  were  to  me  as  are  my 
brothers  and  sisters;  .  .  .  the  place  was  a  palace 
such  as  that  of  the  duke;  ...  the  American 
people  are  strange  in  not  liking  to  be  treated  with  the 
honorable  respect  that  should  come  from  common 
folks." 

The  next  morning  he  shouldered  his  little  blue  striped 
bag,  and  we  started  for  the  Jersey  City  station  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad.  On  the  way  we  encountered 
three  men  in  a  group,  whom  I  knew  with  the  intimacy 
of  long  association.  None  of  the  three  recognized 
me,  and  passed  with  amused  scrutiny.  I  called  one  of 
them  by  name,  and  he  took  to  the  gutter  as  if  thinking 
he  was  about  to  be  held  up.  Then  came  recognition, 
and  I  introduced  Giuseppe.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  we 
missed  the  train  we  had  intended  to  take. 

Being  greatly  pressed  for  time,  I  endeavored  to  per- 
suade Giuseppe  to  go  alone  on  the  next  train  to  New- 
ark, and  in  the  station  even  found  a  Newark  man  who 
kindly  volunteered  to  pilot  him  to  his  uncle's  house; 
but  once  again  he  flung  his  arms  about  me,  and,  to 
quiet  him,  I  bought  another  ticket  and  went  along. 

As  we  got  off  the  car  in  Newark  and  turned  into  the 


236    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

Italian  district,  the  strains  of  bands  fell  on  our  ears,  and 
soon  we  saw  decorated  arches  spanning  the  streets, 
crowds  of  people  in  holiday  dress  thronging  the  way, 
and  later  a  procession  came  by  in  which  scores  of  little 
girls,  marching  in  white,  preceded  a  half-dozen  strong 
men  bearing  a  platform  on  which  was  a  saint's  figure. 
The  people  were  celebrating  the  feast  day  of  the  patron 
saint  of  Avellino,  and  the  figure  was  covered  with 
purses,  medals,  watches,  etc.,  while  heaped-up  gifts 
lay  at  its  feet. 

As  we  neared  the  crowd  some  Avellino  youngster 
saw  us  and  ran  ahead  shrieking  that  Giuseppe  had 
come.  Again  there  was  a  half-hour's  wild  embracing, 
laughing,  and  questioning,  in  which  I  found  myself 
entirely  forgotten  for  the  time  being,  and  when  atten- 
tion was  turned  my  way  it  was  of  a  very  suspicious 
sort.  Giuseppe  told  his  relatives  when  we  reached 
their  house  (back  rooms  in  a  ramshackle  old  frame 
affair)  of  the  several  things  we  had  done  in  endeavor- 
ing to  help  him,  and  everything  he  related  made  the 
people  about  more  suspicious.  All  became  silent  but 
Giuseppe.  I  felt  constrained  to  go,  feeling  most  un- 
welcome and  somewhat  resenting  the  unaccountable 
attitude  of  Giuseppe's  friends. 

As  I  shook  hands  with  him,  he  drew  forth  some 
small  money  which  had  been  given  him  by  some  one 
in  the  crowd,  and  offered  to  recompense  me  in  part, 
and  said  that  when  his  uncle  returned  he  would  send 
me  the  whole  of  what  I  had  expended  for  him.  He 
had  already  given  me  back  the  seventy  lire.  When  I 
told  him  plainly,  and  made  it  emphatic,  that  what 
slight  kindness  I  may  have  had  the  opportunity  of 
showing  him  was  not  for  any  purpose  of  gain,  and 
definitely  refused  the  money,  the  people  about  under- 


THE   DISPERSION  237 

went  a  strange  metamorphosis:  they  hugged  me  and 
patted  me  on  the  back,  two  darted  across  the  street  for 
schooners  of  beer,  a  woman  brought  sweet  cakes,  a 
brand  new  willow  rocking-chair  was  brought  from 
another  room  for  me  to  sit  in,  and  for  the  remaining 
brief  time  I  had  to  spend  with  them  I  was  treated  roy- 
ally. Giuseppe's  cousin  led  in  a  joint  apology  for  their 
coldness  and  concluded  by  saying, — 

"  You  know  American  mans  ain't  good  to  Eyetal- 
yuns  on'y  he  make  de  graft." 

When  1  got  back  to  Houston  Street  there  was  a  tele- 
gram from  Philadelphia  saying  that  Genone  and  the 
four  Socosa  boys  had  arrived  safely  and  would  go  to 
work  the  next  day,  the  four  youths  going  out  to  the 
mines,  and  Genone  into  a  chair  factory  until  he  could 
find  employment  at  his  trade  of  cheese-making.  So  I 
knew  the  party  was  all  safely  distributed,  and  my  wife 
and  I  began  the  process  of  returning  to  our  former 
state  of  life.  It  is  strange,  but  true,  that  it  took  us  a 
full  week  to  change  social  station.  At  first  glance 
there  would  seem  to  be  no  bar  in  doing  it  in  a  few 
hours.  When  my  wife  and  I  had  gone  with  a  part  of 
our  party  to  my  office  on  the  day  of  our  arrival,  not 
a  person  in  the  place  recognized  us,  and  a  half-hour 
later  the  editor  of  Leslie's  Magazine  stood  talking  with 
Antonio  Squadrito  for  some  minutes,  with  my  wife 
and  I  standing  beside  him,  without  recognizing  us,  so 
it  is  no  wonder  that  when  I  went  to  the  storage  ware- 
house to  get  our  effects  the  clerk  refused  to  believe  I 
was  the  man  to  whom  the  receipt  1  held  had  been  is- 
sued. Agents  and  janitors  refused  to  show  us  apart- 
ments in  the  garb  we  were  in,  and  our  clothes  were  in 
our  stored  trunks,  so  it  is  easy  to  see  why  it  was  a 
week  before  we  got  away  from  Houston  Street. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  STRUGGLES  OF  THE  GUALTIERI  BOYS  IN 
NEW  YORK 

FEW  immigrants  come  to  America  these  days 
who  have  not  some  relative  already  here,  who 
has  prepared  some  sort  of  foothold  for  them, 
and  all  have  friends  who  will  look  out  for  their  inter- 
ests to  a  certain  extent.  This  explains  nicely  the  mys- 
tery of  why  immigrants  will  mass  in  the  four  States  of 
the  East  which  lie  nearest  New  York,  when  the  South 
is  offering  inducements  for  Italian  and  Austrian  labor, 
and  the  West  never  has  enough  farm  hands.  I  am  in 
receipt  of  letters  from  large  landholders  in  several  parts 
of  the  West  who  want  immigrants  to  come  and  settle 
on  their  lands,  and  do  not  understand  why,  no  matter 
how  much  publicity  is  given  to  the  advantages  in  the 
West,  the  immigrants  persist  in  clinging  to  the  East. 
The  reason  is  that  they  wish  to  stay  where  their 
friends  and  relatives  are,  and  their  friends  and  relatives 
are  already  situated  in  the  industrial  centres  of  the  East, 
where  they  in  their  turn  had  been  detained  by  the  first 
comers. 

The  two  Gualtieri  boys  came  "  raccomended "  to 
Feiruchio  Vazzana  and  Tommaso  Figaro,  neither  of 
them  relatives,  but  merely  friends,  and  both  with 
enough  to  do  in  looking  after  their  own  family  circles' 
interests,  so  that  the  two  were  thrown  very  largely  on 
their  own  resources;  and  their  adventures  in  New 
York,  on  which  I  have  kept  a  very  careful  eye  withou* 


THE   GUALTIERI   BOYS     239 

too  much  interference,  form  a  very  typical  story  of 
what  befalls  the  "greenhorn." 

Both  had  a  small  amount  of  money,  and,  if  neces- 
sary, Nunzio  could  have  sent  home  for  more,  but  his 
pride  forbade.  With  Nicola  it  was  different;  the  entire 
family  fortunes  depended  on  this  venture,  though  I 
did  not  know  it  for  some  months:  the  bit  of  property 
his  father  owns  is  worth  about  $300,  and  represents  the 
toil  of  a  lifetime.  This  had  been  mortgaged  for  $60  at 
twenty  per  cent  for  six  months,  in  order  that  Nicola 
might  come  to  America.  His  wages  as  a  cabinet- 
maker and  finished  carpenter  in  the  village  had  been  a 
most  important  factor  in  the  family  support.  The 
family  consists  of  his  father  and  mother,  his  wife  a 
girl  not  yet  eighteen,  and  their  year-old  baby.  To 
make  up  for  the  lack  of  this,  the  three  adults  all  en- 
gaged in  work  of  some  sort  until  the  time  when  Nicola 
could  begin  to  send  home  the  splendid  earnings  to 
which  he  looked  forward  in  America. 

He  had  received  a  good  education  in  the  academic 
and  technical  schools  of  Messina,  and  in  addition  to 
being  a  first-class  cabinet-maker  is  an  excellent  trom- 
bonist. He  had  served  his  term  in  the  Guardia  di 
Finanza,  and  had  at  one  time  been  awarded  a  prize  of 
100  lire  for  bravery  and  efficiency  in  trapping  some 
west-coast  smugglers. 

With  Nunzio  the  case  was  different.  Though  big 
and  strong,  he  had  no  technical  training  whatever,  the 
five  years  of  his  life  which  he  had  spent  in  the  Carabi- 
neers precluding  all  opportunities  for  that.  He  could 
be  only  an  unskilled  laborer. 

The  first  thing  to  do  was  to  find  them  living  quarters, 
and  this  was  done  by  their  friends.  Nicola  got  a  room 
which  he  shared  with  four  other  men,  and  his  board 


240    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

and  washing,  for  $3.20  per  week,  and  Nunzio  got  a 
tiny  single  room,  in  another  house,  with  board,  for 
%).^o  per  week.  A  part  of  Nicola's  slender  store  went 
at  once  to  buy  him  a  cheap  overcoat. 

The  very  next  day  after  being  settled,  they  began  the 
hunt  for  work,  accompanied  by  Tommaso  or  Ferruchio. 
Wherever  Nunzio  went,  bosses,  superintendents,  man- 
agers looked  at  his  massive  frame  and  seemed  inclined 
to  hire  him  until  they  found  he  could  speak  no  English, 
and  then  they  turned  away,  saying  they  had  no  time 
to  bother  in  teaching  him  how  to  take  orders.  All  of 
the  contractors  for  gangs  of  Italians  seemed  to  have  all 
the  men  they  wished,  and  as  day  after  day  went  by, 
tramping  the  city,  going  to  as  many  as  forty  places  in 
one  afternoon,  and  meeting  with  a  refusal  everywhere, 
Nunzio  began  to  get  very  discouraged,  and  Ferruchio 
to  protest  that  he  could  not  afford  the  time  from  his 
own  business  to  go  about  and  interpret,  and  Nunzio 
tried  to  go  alone  one  morning.  It  was  late  in  the 
afternoon  before  he  even  found  his  way  back  home, 
and  he  was  very  badly  frightened.  In  a  little  while  his 
money  was  entirely  gone,  and  he  was  on  the  verge  of 
despair. 

When  things  were  the  blackest,  he  heard  that  a 
number  of  Italians  were  being  employed  to  clean  out 
a  big  store  in  some  place  where  the  "L  "  trains  ran  by, 
and  reported  it  to  Ferruchio,  who  followed  up  this 
slender  clew  and  found  that  Siegel  &  Cooper  were  tak- 
ing on  all  Italians  for  their  night  porter's  staff,  as  they 
found  them  much  better  workmen  than  the  mixed 
Germans,  Irish,  and  negroes  they  had  had.  In  brief, 
Nunzio  secured  a  place  in  the  big  department  store, 
going  to  work  at  seven  in  the  evening  and  working 
until  seven  in  the  morning  for  $7.50  per  week,  and 


THE   GUALTIERI    BOYS      241 

good  pay  for  overtime.  He  had  Italians  all  about 
him,  and  the  work,  though  heavy,  was  not  unbear- 
able. I  photographed  him  and  his  associates  one 
night,  and  the  pictures  tell  the  story  very  well.  The 
great  disadvantage  was  that  he  could  not  hear  any 
English  spoken,  and  at  the  end  of  six  weeks  in  this 
country  could  say  nothing  but  "Good-morning"  and 
a  few  bits  of  profanity.  Meanwhile  he  was  sleeping 
all  day,  working  all  night,  and  saving  every  cent  he 
earned.  His  hands  were  growing  calloused  in  the 
spots  that  had  been  sore  the  first  few  days,  and  he  was 
much  happier  than  he  had  been  at  any  time.  But  mis- 
fortune came.  He  was  detailed  to  work  with  a  Cala- 
brese  who  had  charge  of  the  day  work  in  the  room 
where  the  store's  waste  paper  is  baled.  There  was  $17 
profit  for  the  company  on  the  saving  and  selling  of 
each  day's  waste  paper.  The  Calabrese  spoke  English 
and  took  the  orders  from  the  superintendent,  translat- 
ing them  to  Nunzio  and  another  "  greenhorn."  Shortly 
after  Nunzio  had  been  promoted  to  day  work  and  his 
pay  raised  a  dollar,  a  cousin  of  the  Calabrese  arrived  in 
New  York,  and  the  Calabrese  wanted  Nunzio's  place 
for  the  cousin,  so  he  began  systematically  to  undermine 
Nunzio.  If  the  superintendent  ordered  one  thing,  the 
Calabrese  told  Nunzio  it  was  another,  and  when  the 
superintendent  kicked  because  the  work  was  improp- 
erly done,  the  Calabrese  laid  the  blame  on  Nunzio.  At 
last  one  night  the  superintendent  asked  all  hands  to 
work  a  part  of  the  night,  and  the  Calabrese  informed 
him  that  Nunzio  refused  to  do  so,  something  which 
Nunzio  had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  doing,  and  in  ten 
more  seconds  Nunzio  found  himself  being  suddenly 
and  inexplicably  ushered  outside. 

Of  course  it  was  not  difficult  to  reinstate  him  in  a 


242    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

day  or  two,  but  after  the  holiday  rush  was  over  scores 
of  people  were  discharged,  and  Nunzio  went  among 
the  rest.  Once  again  he  began  the  task  of  finding  a 
place,  and  tramped  the  streets  in  the  bitter  cold,  going 
about  asking  every  place  where  there  was  work  going 
on,  "You  wan-sa  man?" — and  when  it  was  found 
that  that  was  about  all  the  English  he  knew,  the  boss 
would  always  shake  his  head.  For  weeks  he  lived  on 
the  money  which  he  had  saved  while  working  in  the 
department  store,  and  then  one  day  he  accosted  Mr. 
Tolman,  the  superintendent  in  Mc Call's  Ba^ar  estab- 
lishment in  Thirty-First  Street,  and,  as  it  happened  that 
a  man  was  needed  that  very  minute  to  handle  the  huge 
piles  of  printed  matter  in  the  shop,  Nunzio  was  put  to 
work  at  $1.25  per  day.  I  saw  him  the  evening  of  the 
second  day,  and  he  was  unable  to  sit  up  straight  from 
soreness  caused  by  the  heavy  lifting  and  carrying  he 
had  to  do,  but  he  clung  desperately  to  his  employment, 
and  now  his  reward  has  come.  All  about  him  are 
English-speaking  people  with  the  exception  of  a  large 
group  of  Austrians,  and  so  he  is  picking  up  the  lan- 
guage rapidly,  and  he  has  been  promoted  to  the  run- 
ning of  one  of  the  big  machines  in  the  plant  and  is 
averaging  $10  a  week.  His  face  shines  with  his  pros- 
perity and  he  wants  to  get  married. 

There  were  many  opportunities  for  work  for  a 
skilled  cabinet-maker  in  October  and  November,  but 
there  were  three  huge  obstacles  in  the  way  of  Nicola's 
embracing  one  of  the  many, — lack  of  English,  lack  of 
tools,  lack  of  a  union  card. 

The  matter  of  the  tools  was  not  insurmountable,  but 
the  others  seemed  to  be.  After  a  week's  hunt  for 
work  in  some  small  shop  where  he  could  have  tools 
supplied  him  and  a  union  card  was  not  required,  he 


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THE   GUALTIERI    BOYS      243 

seized  a  chance  to  go  to  work  for  the  United  States 
Biscuit  Company,  hustling  boxes  of  biscuits,  etc.,  and 
for  his  work  received  pay  at  the  rate  of  $4  a  week, 
which  he  calculated  would  pay  his  expenses  while  he 
was  waiting  an  opportunity  to  engage  in  his  trade. 
Four  days  of  this  work  saw  him  exhausted  physically, 
his  hand  mashed,  and  his  wrist  strained  so  that  he  was 
unfit  for  work  of  any  kind.  Before  he  was  well  again 
he  was  in  debt  so  deeply  that  he  was  nearly  distracted. 
Just  at  the  time  when  his  family  was  expecting  he 
should  be  sending  home  some  fine  sums  of  money,  he 
was  unable  to  make  even  his  own  living,  through  lack 
not  of  capability  but  of  opportunity. 

He  got  two  or  three  days'  work  for  an  Italian  car- 
penter who  was  doing  some  roof-repairing,  and  the 
$4  he  made  paid  one  week's  expenses  at  least;  then 
he  was  commissioned  to  make  a  cabinet  for  filing 
papers,  and  Tommaso  arranged  with  an  Irish  carpenter 
named  Delaney,  who  had  a  shop  at  147  West  Thirtieth 
Street,  for  Nicola  to  work  there  while  making  the 
cabinet,  paying  Delaney  a  dollar  a  day  for  the  use  of 
tools  and  shop.  There  was  no  fire  in  the  shop  during 
Christmas  week,  and  Nicola  caught  a  heavy  cold. 
New  Year  fell  on  Friday,  and  there  was  no  work  of 
course.  He  spent  the  day  resting  and  doctoring  him- 
self. Saturday  morning  a  terrible  blizzard  was  blow- 
ing, and  he  walked  through  it  from  the  East  Side  to 
the  shop,  arriving  at  seven  o'clock,  but  no  one  had  ap- 
peared to  unlock  the  place.  If  he  could  have  spoken 
English  he  could  have  inquired  where  to  find  Delaney 
or  where  to  telephone  him,  but  all  he  could  do  was  to 
wait  or  go  home,  so  he  waited  there  on  the  step  in  the 
driving  storm  until  one  o'clock  that  afternoon,  when 
he  appeared  at  my  house  hardly  in  his  senses,  nearly 


244    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

dead  from  exposure  and  on  the  verge  of  pneumonia. 
Only  by  his  friends  taking  extreme  care  of  him  was  he 
able  to  go  back  in  a  few  days  and  finish  his  work. 
During  this  time  Tommaso  Figaro,  acting  on  my  advice, 
went  with  Nicola  to  both  the  Carpenters' and  Cabinet- 
makers' locals,  and  endeavored  to  get  him  admitted  to 
the  unions.  At  first  the  difficulty  seemed  to  be  that 
there  was  no  union  man  to  sign  Nicola's  application, 
but  this  was  obviated.  Why  the  matter  was  delayed 
thereafter  I  do  not  know.  Two  excellent  opportuni- 
ties for  employment  at  the  union  rate  of  $18. 50  a  week 
were  offered  to  Nicola  in  the  last  week  of  January,  but 
he  could  not  begin  work  until  he  got  his  union  card. 
He  did  not  get  it  then,  nor  has  he  even  got  it  yet. 

On  the  1st  of  March  he  must  send  home  the  money 
to  lift  the  debt  on  his  father's  property,  or  the  family's 
little  all  would  go.  He  was  not  yet  caught  up  with  his 
own  debts  in  this  country,  and  so  he  abandoned  all 
hope  for  the  time  being  of  trying  to  get  employment 
at  his  trade,  and  began  to  look  for  employment  as  an 
unskilled  laborer.  At  the  end  of  a  black  week  he 
found  this  in  Charles  Schweinler's  printing  establish- 
ment in  the  Lexington  Building  on  East  Twenty-fifth 
Street,  and  at  this  writing  he  is  still  laboring  there, 
carrying  bundles  of  paper  from  press  to  table  and  such 
tasks.  He  is  receiving  about  $8  a  week,  adding  in 
his  pay  for  extra  time.  When  the  1st  of  March  came 
he  had  just  $7  instead  of  the  needed  $60,  and  when 
every  ray  of  hope  seemed  gone  and  he  was  nearly  wild 
with  worry  a  way  was  opened  and  the  debt  was  paid. 

So  far  both  boys  have  been  so  intent  on  their  own 
struggles  and  their  own  work  that  neither  has  given 
much  thought  to  the  country  in  which  he  now  lives, 
and  less  to  the  rights  as  a  citizen  which  he  may  come 


THE   GUALTIERI    BOYS      245 

to  enjoy  legally  in  five  years,  or  illegally  at  any  time  he 
wishes  by  purchasing  fraudulent  naturalization  papers. 

The  night  we  landed  in  New  York  from  Ellis  Island 
there  were  signs  everywhere  of  the  bitter  battle  be- 
tween Low  and  McClellan  and  their  respective  sup- 
porters. I  explained  it  all  carefully  to  our  people,  and 
they  were  greatly  interested,  for  they  thoroughly  under- 
stood the  electoral  form  of  government,  as  communal 
and  legislative  officials  are  elected  by  popular  vote  in 
Italy.  Two  days  later  Nunzio  told  me  that  an  Italian 
friend  of  his  had  asked  him  if  he  did  not  want  to  make  a 
couple  of  dollars  voting  at  the  election  two  weeks 
hence. 

"Why,  I  cannot  vote;  I  have  not  been  here  long 
enough,"  said  Nunzio. 

"  Huh,  you  area,  greenhorn.  I  have  only  been  here 
two  years,  and  I  have  voted  twice  and  belong  to  a 
political  club.  You  come  around  to  the  club  with  me, 
and  I  will  introduce  you  to  a  man  who  will  give  you 
naturalization  papers.  We  will  register  you,  and  you 
will  never  need  think  of  it  after  that.  You  will  be  just 
as  much  of  a  citizen  as  any  of  us." 

When  I  explained  to  the  boys  how  illegal  this  pro- 
cedure would  have  been,  Nunzio  said: 

"  Well,  if  that  is  the  sort  of  thing  being  a  citizen  is, 
I  don't  believe  I  want  to  be  one." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION 

IT  is  exasperating  to  any  patriotic  American  to  have 
brought  convincingly  before  him  the  proofs  of  a 
wholesale  evasion  of  a  very  carefully  planned  code 
of  laws  which  he  fain  would  think  is  a  sufficient  pro- 
tection of  his  civic  rights  and  his  country's  best  inter- 
ests. It  is  more  annoying  to  realize  that  the  successful 
evaders  are  for  the  most  part  foreigners,  and  those, 
too,  of  commonly  despised  races. 

The  severity  of  our  laws  in  the  matter  of  counter- 
feiting is  well  known,  but  they  have  no  terrors  what- 
soever for  the  gangs  of  Italian  counterfeiters  who  are 
giving  the  Secret  Service  Department  more  trouble 
than  it  has  ever  had  with  native  criminals  of  this 
order. 

The  internal  revenue  laws  are  very  thorough,  and 
the  execution  of  them  is  far-reaching  and  systematic, 
in  fact  the  administration  of  the  federal  internal  revenue 
system  has  long  been  a  boast  with  this  country,  and  so 
well  did  it  do  its  work  that  now  and  then  a  lone 
moonshiner  escaped  detection,  and  that  was  all.  Since 
the  influx  of  foreign  masses  into  the  country,  the 
troubles  of  the  Department  have  grown.  In  the  larger 
cities  to-day  the  Bohemian  cigar  makers  and  dealers  are 
building  up  intricate  systems  of  cigar  making  and  sell- 
ing without  paying  the  government  its  due.  Buying 
direct  from  farmers  and  planters,  failing  to  account  for 
the  stock  bought,  making  without  recording  the  prod- 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     247 

uct,  selling  it  clandestinely  to  refill  boxes, — those  are 
some  of  the  details  of  the  operations.  The  extent  of 
the  frauds  is  growing  every  day,  just  as  rapidly  as  the 
number  of  aliens  who  will  engage  in  such  practices  in- 
creases. 

Of  the  naturalization  frauds  much  has  been  written 
and  said,  and  I  have  given  a  number  of  instances  in 
earlier  chapters  which  show  how  the  Italians  particu- 
larly operate  with  fraudulent  naturalization  papers,  not 
only  using  them  to  vote  with  in  this  country,  and  so 
reap  the  harvest  of  political  heelers, — meanwhile  having 
any  true  idea  of  citizenship  they  might  get  hopelessly 
abased, — but  farming  them  out  to  serve  as  cloaks  for 
passing  in  as  citizens  several  of  their  countrymen  each 
year.  The  worst  feature  of  this  is  that  politically  un- 
scrupulous men  in  all  of  the  large  cities  of  the  country 
do  not  hesitate  to  use  their  influence  to  obtain  fraud- 
ulent naturalization  papers  for  their  alien  followers, 
in  fact  employ  the  papers  to  buy  the  friendship  of  the 
aliens  or  to  reward  services  already  rendered.  There 
are  election  districts  in  the  Italian  quarter  of  New 
York  where  not  more  than  onehalf  of  the  registered 
foreign-born  voters  are  legally  entitled  to  ballot. 

The  remedy  for  this  feature  of  alien  legislation  and 
evasion  is  to  change,  by  Federal  act,  the  system  of  ex- 
amining aliens,  and,  without  making  it  more  difficult 
for  a  man  to  become  naturalized  rightfully,  make  the 
research  into  his  record  and  attainments  so  far-reach- 
ing that  even  perjury  will  not  save  him;  for  perjury, 
as  a  crime,  rests  lightly  on  the  average  alien's  con- 
science. 

The  evasions  of  the  contract-labor  law  and  of  the 
exclusion-of-diseased-immigrants  law  have  been  many 
times    mentioned   in   these    pages,    and   constitute   a 


248    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

problem  which  will  not  be  solved  by  any  legislation 
making  the  examination  at  our  ports  any  more  strict. 
Smuggling  across  the  border  from  Canada  and 
Mexico  continues  to  be  a  favorite  method  of  evasion 
of  the  laws.  A  general  statement  of  the  situation  is 
made  in  the  following  extract  from  the  Report  for 
1903  of  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration,  F.  P. 
Sargent,  which  includes  extracts  from  the  last  Report 
of  Commissioner  for  Canada,  Robert  Watchorn,  on 
the  year's  work  done  at  Canadian  ports  and  on  the 
border.  It  should  prove  a  revelation  to  those  who  be- 
lieve our  present  system  of  controlling  immigration  is 
a  success. 

This  statement,  covering  the  past  seven  fiscal  years, 
will  serve  to  show  the  steady  increase  in  alien  immi- 
gration to  the  United  States  through  the  ports  of 
Canada: 

July  I,  1896,  to  June  30,  1897 10,646 

July  I,  1897,  to  June  30,  1898 10,737 

July  1,  1898,  to  June  30,  1899 13,853 

July  1,  1899,  to  June  30,  1900 23,200 

July  I,  1900,  to  June  30,  1901 25,220 

July  1,  1 90 1,  to  June  30,  1902 29,199 

July  1,  1902,  to  June  30,  1903 35>920 

The  foregoing  figures,  it  should  be  remembered,  re- 
fer to  those  only  who  are  manifested  on  the  lists  fur- 
nished by  transportation  lines  whose  North  American 
terminals  are  at  Canadian  seaports  as  destined  to  the 
United  States.  They  do  not  include  those  aliens  who 
subsequent  to  landing  in  the  Dominion  enter  this 
country  as  residents  of  Canada.  The  number  of  such 
is  doubtless  considerable,  but  the  Bureau  has  no  data 
at  its  command  to  enable  it  to  make  even  an  approx- 
imately accurate  computation  thereof.  The  inspection 
of  those  referred  to  in  the  foregoing  statement  is  made 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     249 

at  the  Canadian  port  of  arrival  in  the  same  manner 
that  aliens  arriving  at  seaports  of  this  country  are  ex- 
amined. 

As  to  the  operations  of  administrative  officers  in  re- 
spect to  those  who  seek  admission  after  temporary 
residence  in  the  Dominion  the  subjoined  report  of  the 
United  States  commissioner  of  immigration  at  Mon- 
treal gives  information  that  cannot  fail  to  impress  one 
with  the  magnitude  and  importance  of  the  duties  dis- 
charged under  his  supervision,  as  well  as  with  the 
efficiency  with  which  those  duties  are  performed. 

from  commissioner  watchorns  report. 

233  St.  Antoine  Street, 
Montreal,  Canada. 

Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  report  for  the  fiscal  year 
concerning  immigration  from  Europe  to  the  United 
States  through  Canada. 

Pursuant  to  the  requirements  of  section  10  of  De- 
partment Circular  97,  dated  November  1,  1901,  monthly 
reports  have  been  made  to  the  Bureau  on  the  prescribed 
forms;  you  are  therefore  already  fully  advised  as  to  the 
numbers  of  aliens  examined,  admitted,  or  rejected,  as 
the  case  may  be.  This  report  is  intended  to  amplify 
the  information  furnished  per  regular  forms. 

One  year  ago  1  had  occasion  to  report  that  an  act  of 
Parliament  had  been  passed  at  Ottawa,  to  wit,  Bill  1 12, 
passed  by  House  of  Commons  May,  1902,  designed  to 
prevent  "  the  landing  at  Canadian  ports  of  any  immi- 
grant or  other  passenger  who  is  suffering  from  a  loath- 
some, dangerous,  infectious  disease  or  malady,  whether 
such  immigrant  intends  to  settle  in  Canada,  or  only  in- 
tends to  pass  through  Canada  to  settle  in  some  other 
country." 

Although  this  act  was  passed  in  May,  1902,  it  was 
not  made  effective  till  September  8  of  the  same  year. 
This  delay  was  due  to  the  absence  from  Ottawa  of 
certain  government  officials  whose  approval  was  essen- 
tial to  its  promulgation. 

During  the  interim  from  the  passage  to  the  promul- 


ISO    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

gation  of  this  act  a  large  number  of  aliens  destined 
to  the  United  States,  and  a  greater  number  destined  to 
Canada,  were  permitted  to  land  despite  the  fact  that 
the  act  in  question,  if  enforceable,  would  have  pre- 
cluded the  possibility  of  their  landing. 

Indeed,  it  was  not  until  said  act  was  made  enforce- 
able and  enforced  that  a  single  legal  deportation  could 
have  been  effected  from  Canada,  so  that  its  promul- 
gation may  be  cited  as  the  one  paramount  important 
feature  of  the  year. 

The  Bureau  having  been  amply  apprised  of  the  fact 
that  the  above-mentioned  Canadian  legislation  is  due 
solely  to  revelations  made  by  United  States  immigrant 
inspectors  on  the  Canadian  frontier,  it  will  not  be 
necessary  to  dwell  further  on  that  point  than  to  em- 
phasize the  fact  that  this  very  important  matter  fur- 
nishes both  the  Canadian  and  United  States  gov- 
ernments genuine  cause  for  gratification,  inasmuch  as 
both  are  now  capable  of  dealing  satisfactorily  with  a 
very  grave  question. 

I  felt  constrained  to  remark  in  the  annual  report  for 
1902  that  we  must  wait  for  developments  in  order  to 
be  able  to  ascertain  whether  the  Canadian  exclusion  act 
would  afford  the  satisfaction  anticipated,  and  expe- 
rience has  demonstrated  that  it  was  quite  a  proper  ob- 
servation to  make,  because  it  has  frequently  occurred 
that  a  disagreement  of  diagnoses  has  been  determined 
on  the  Canadian  medical  examiner's  certificate,  which 
has  led  to  certain  aliens  being  allowed  to  land  instead 
of  being  deported,  as  would  have  been  the  case  had 
the  United  States  medical  examiner's  certificate  been 
accepted  as  final. 

However,  it  is  a  source  of  pleasure  to  me  to  be  able 
to  report  that  while  such  cases  were  painfully  numer- 
ous during  the  early  period  of  the  enforcement  of  the 
Canadian  exclusion  act,  there  has  been  a  tendency  to 
uniformity  of  diagnoses,  and  not  only  that,  but  also  an 
appreciable  improvement  in  the  conditions  existing  be- 
tween the  officers  of  the  immigration  services,  Cana- 
dian and  United  States,  respectively. 

The  superintendent  of  immigration  of  the  Dominion 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     251 

of  Canada,  Mr.  W.  D.  Scott,  has  evinced  a  desire  to 
give  a  broad  interpretation  of  the  act  alluded  to.  In 
this  connection  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  quote  ver- 
batim a  few  sentences  from  a  communication  he  ad- 
dressed to  this  office  on  May  28,  1903: 

Ottawa,  May  28,  1903. 

.  .  .  But  it  is  very  clear  to  me  that  if  these  people 
are  of  the  class  who  are  likely  to  be  refused  by  your 
commissioners  .  .  .  they  must  be  of  the  class  that 
would  be  refused  by  the  Canadian  medical  officers  at 
Atlantic  seaports. 

It  is  quite  true,  however,  that  our  examination,  so 
far  as  money  standard  is  concerned,  is  not  particularly 
strict,  but  aside  from  that,  on  all  other  points  1  do  not 
know  that  there  is  very  much  difference  between  the 
general  reasons  for  deportation  taken  into  consider- 
ation by  the  Canadian  and  United  States  officials.  .  .  . 

Allow  me  to  assure  you  again  that  this  department 
will  do  everything  to  cooperate  in  preventing  an  unde- 
sirable class  of  people  from  the  Continent  to  land  in 
this  country. 

These  sentiments  are  so  plainly  indicative  of  a  reali- 
zation on  the  part  of  the  Canadian  officials  of  the 
necessity  for  enlightened  action,  that  comment  on  them 
on  my  part  is  unnecessary. 

Even  a  tentative  co-operation  is  a  vast  improvement 
on  the  methods  prevalent  prior  to  September,  1901  (all 
of  which  was  reported  June  30,  1902),  and  a  continuance 
of  it  may  be  safely  relied  on  to  correct  still  further 
a  condition  which  had  become  well-nigh  intolerable. 

During  the  ten  months  which  were  covered  by  my 
report  of  June  30,  1902,  the  gateways  to  the  United 
States  via  the  Canadian  frontier  east  of  Sault  Ste 
Marie  became  thoroughly  well  known  to  many  in- 
terested persons,  and  it  became  evident  to  us  that  the 
properly  protected  gateways  were  being  avoided  by 
certain  classes  of  immigrants,  and  it  was  incumbent 
on  us  to  ascertain  what  outlet  was  being  sought  in 
lieu  of  the  well-guarded  routes. 


252    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

This  investigation  revealed  a  state  of  things  requir- 
ing prompt  and  vigorous  action  on  the  part  of 
the  Bureau.  It  devolved  upon  me  to  advise  the 
Bureau  that  whatever  leak  there  was  was  beyond 
the  western  extremity  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Mon- 
treal office,  and  to  recommend  that  steps  be  taken  to 
"check  the  current  which  was  all  too  plainly  being 
diverted  to  frontier  points  west  of  Sault  Ste  Marie." 


Pursuant  to  instructions  I  detailed  a  corps  of  well- 
trained  inspectors  and  interpreters  to  duty  at  Winni- 
peg, Manitoba,  and  at  the  same  time,  through  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Bureau,  obtained  the  acquiescence  of  the 
parties  of  the  second  part  (to  wit,  certain  Canadian 
transportation  companies)  to  Department  Circular  97, 
dated  November  1,  1901,  to  the  establishment  of  a 
board  of  special  inquiry  at  Winnipeg. 

The  Bureau  will  have  some  approximate  idea  of  the 
importance  of  this  change  when  viewing  it  in  the  light 
of  the  following  figures: 

Since  the  date  of  the  opening  of  the  Winnipeg 
office  (February  14,  1903)  no  less  than  2,157  immi- 
grants have  been  examined  by  the  board  of  special  in- 
quiry, and  certificates  of  admission  have  been  issued 
to  1,633,  while  the  surprising  number  of  524 1  have 
been  rejected  for  the  following  causes: 

Trachoma 171 

Minors  dependent  on  above 128 

Likely  to  become  public  charge 171 

Contract  laborers 51 

Measles 3 

Total 524 

The  total  amount  of  head  tax  collected  on  account 
of  these  immigrants  is  $3,729,  not  a  dollar  of  which 
would  have  been  collected  had  this  important  change 
not  been  made;  nor  would  a  single  person  in  the  list 

1  Including  Pembina  and  Portal. 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     253 

of  objectionables  have  been  denied  admission  to  the 
United  States,  but  would  have  crossed  the  frontier 
without  let  or  hindrance,  as  thousands  of  their  equally 
objectionable  kind  had  been  doing  for  an  indefinite 
period  of  time. 

The  work  of  the  board  of  special  inquiry  at  Winni- 
peg had  scarcely  commenced  when  we  discovered 
that  the  objectionable  aliens  whose  access  to  the  United 
States  the  Montreal  office  was  established  to  prevent 
were  going  still  farther  westward,  and  rejections  are 
now  not  at  all  uncommon  as  far  west  as  the  borders 
of  Montana,  Idaho,  and  Washington. 

The  Bureau  saw  fit,  on  March  26,  1903,  to  promote 
the  Montreal  office  from  a  special  inspectorship  to  a 
commissionership,  and  to  extend  its  jurisdiction  to  the 
Atlantic  ports,  Halifax,  N.  S. ;  St.  John,  N.  B. ;  and 
Quebec,  Que. 


This  change  added  materially  to  the  efficiency  of 
this  Office  in  view  of  the  fact  that  it  served  as  a  notice 
to  all  concerned  that  the  Bureau  was  earnestly  sup- 
porting its  force  in  Canada. 

The  change  also  improved  conditions  at  the  above- 
named  ports,  as  it  enabled  the  officer  in  charge,  As- 
sistant Commissioner  John  Thomas,  toco-operate  with 
the  border  force  to  greater  advantage,  and  thus  con- 
serve to  a  far  greater  extent  the  excellent  results  at- 
tained under  his  efficient  administration. 

It  has  been  absolutely  necessary  for  me  to  apply  to 
the  Bureau  quite  frequently  for  additional  medical  ex- 
aminers, inspectors,  interpreters,  and  clerks,  since  the 
close  of  the  last  fiscal  year,  and  to  the  prompt  and  sat- 
isfactory manner  in  which  the  Bureau  has  responded 
to  those  applications  is  due  the  remarkable  showing 
made  during  the  present  fiscal  year. 

On  June  30,  1902,  the  total  force  numbered  66;  now 
it  numbers  1 16.  On  careful  perusal  the  records  of  ad- 
missions and  rejections  will  be  found  to  correspond  to 
the  force  employed  to  deal  with  the  situation,  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  present  grade  of  efficient  officers 


254    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

along  the  entire  frontier  will  enable  the  Bureau  to  deal 
as  satisfactorily  with  the  matter  as  it  deals  with  it  at 
United  States  ocean  ports  of  entry. 

During  the  twelve  months  ended  to-day  many  per- 
sons have  applied  for  admission  to  the  United  States 
via  Canada  whose  personal  appearance  and  general 
conditions  should  have  precluded  the  possibility  of 
their  having  been  allowed  to  embark  on  any  vessel  de- 
signed to  carry  passengers  under  conditions  of  health 
and  comfort. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  relate  that  in  some  instances 
the  filthy  conditions  have  been  so  abominable  as  to 
render  it  impossible  for  our  medical  examiners  to  give 
them  the  attention  required  by  our  laws  and  regula- 
tions. The  Bureau,  like  myself,  will  have  to  leave  it 
to  conjecture  how  fellow-passengers  huddled  together 
in  the  close  quarters  of  an  Atlantic  liner  have  endured 
the  contaminating  presence  of  such  persons. 

Admission  to  the  United  States  has  been  invariably 
denied  to  such  applicants,  and  in  some  instances  it  has 
been  deemed  unwise  to  return  them  to  Canada,  and 
deportation  to  Europe  has  been  effected. 

1  shall  not  attempt  to  draw  a  picture  of  the  situation 
as  it  now  appears,  for  the  accompanying  figures  are  so 
fraught  with  food  for  reflection  that  embellishment 
would  be  superfluous.  However,  it  may  be  well  to 
emphasize  a  few  of  the  more  important  features  rep- 
resented by  these  figures. 

We  have  always  contended  that  large  numbers  of 
aliens  destined  to  the  United  States  were  designedly 
manifested  to  Canada,  and  while  there  has  been  some 
effort  made  by  the  steamship  lines  to  correct  this  evil 
by  refusing  passage  to  the  more  obviously  diseased 
(some  150  such  refusals  have  been  reported  by  all  the 
"lines"),  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  improvement 
has  not  been  on  broader  lines.  I  have  used  the  words 
"obviously  diseased  "  advisedly,  because  the  decrease 
is  most  noticeable  in  that  class  of  diseased  persons 
whose  ailments  cannot  be  hidden. 

For  instance,  during  the  ten  months  ended  June  30, 
1902,  as  many  as  ninety-six  cases  of  favus  were  rejected 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     255 

at  the  Montreal  office  alone.  It  was  at  that  time  that  the 
agitation  on  this  question  in  Canada  was  kept  up  with 
considerable  vigor,  in  view  of  which  the  weeding-out 
process  was  undertaken  at  ports  of  embarkation. 

Favus,  as  you  know,  shockingly  disfigures  its  vic- 
tims, eating  out  the  hair,  producing  disgusting  scalp 
sores  until  cured,  which  is  often  deferred  until  the 
head  is  totally  denuded  of  hair. 

An  examination  at  ports  of  embarkation  almost  in- 
variably leads  to  a  detection  of  this  disease,  and  they 
who  are  afflicted  with  it  are  most  likely  to  be  set  aside. 
That  such  has  been  the  case  there  is  little  room  for 
doubt,  as  you  will  observe,  against  ninety-six  cases  of 
favus  for  ten  months  last  year  only  forty-four  such 
cases  are  reported  for  the  Montreal  local  office  for  the 
entire  year,  and  only  seven  of  these  have  been  re- 
ported since  January  1,  1903,  a  date  coincident  with 
the  commencement  of  actual  enforcement  of  the 
Canadian  act  aforementioned. 

Another  dangerous  and  dreaded  disease,  which  is 
more  difficult  of  detection,  has  not  been  marked  by  any 
such  decrease;  in  fact,  the  very  opposite  result  is 
shown.  Even  at  the  Montreal  office,  where  the 
classes  of  immigrants  applying  for  certificates  of  ad- 
mission to  the  United  States  show  such  marked  im- 
provement over  last  year,  there  has  been  an  increase 
in  the  number  of  trachoma  cases. 

Increases  in  trachomatous  applicants  elsewhere  than 
at  the  Montreal  office  may  be  safely  ascribed  to  the  ex- 
tended field  of  our  operations  and  the  increased  force 
of  inspectors  assigned  to  duty  at  border  stations. 
Practically  no  rejections  were  reported  west  of  Port 
Huron  last  year,  whereas  the  present  year's  work  fur- 
nishes a  greater  number  of  border  rejections  west  of 
Port  Huron  than  east  of  it. 

The  accompanying  tabulated  figures  will  suffice  to 
inform  you  as  to  the  classes  rejected,  showing  the  na- 
tionalities furnishing  the  greatest  number  of  objection- 
ables  and  the  steamship  lines  carrying  them. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  without  special  explanatory  ref- 
erences, the  figures  might  easily  be  understood,  hence 


256    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

the  necessity  for  calling  attention  to  certain  features 
connected  with  these  tables. 

The  figures  given  are  for  the  whole  year,  but  the  lat- 
ter half  of  the  year  is  quite  different  from  the  former 
half.  The  former  half  may  be  said  to  have  been  quite 
normal,  while  the  latter  half  represents  a  totally  unpre- 
cedented condition  in  Canadian  immigration. 

The  Provincial  and  Dominion  governments  have  been 
exerting  themselves  most  actively  to  induce  immigra- 
tion of  the  "fitter  kind,"  and  so  well  have  they  suc- 
ceeded that  all  shipping  facilities  have  been  utilized  to 
their  utmost  capacity  to  accommodate  agricultural  set- 
tlers, principally  for  the  Northwest,  to  the  almost  total 
exclusion  of  passengers  from  the  continent  of  Europe. 

The  annual  arrivals  at  Canadian  ports  since  1892  are 
as  follows: 

Ocean  ports  only : 

1892 27,898 

1893 29,632 

1894 20,829 

1895 18,790 

1896 16,835 

Total  immigration : 

1897 21,914 

1898 31.900 

1899 44,543 

1900  (first  six  months) 23,895 

I9°° 49.M9 

i9°l-2  ••• 67,379 

1902-3  (estimated) 114,000 

These  figures  are  furnished  by  the  Dominion  super- 
intendent of  immigration,  and  leave  no  room  for  doubt 
as  to  the  trend  of  immigration  to  Canada,  and  it  is  only 
proper  to  state  that  the  large  numbers  having  arrived 
since  January  i,  1903,  have  been  for  the  most  part  of 
an  exceptionally  fine  class. 

A  preponderance  of  agriculturists  has  characterized 
every  shipload  for  the  time  above  specified,  and  they 
have  gone  to  the  Northwestern  Provinces  in  search  of 
homes  on  the  rich  and  inviting  prairies  of  that  vast 
country. 

It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  a  certain  percentage  of 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     257 

them  will  find  themselves  unsuited  to  the  new  con- 
ditions, and  such  of  them  as  do  so  will  probably  seek 
admission  to  the  United  States,  or  return  to  their  native 
homes.  Arrangements  have  been  fully  made  to  gather 
actual  statistics  concerning  such  of  them  as  may  sub- 
sequently enter  the  United  States,  and  these  figures 
will  be  furnished  you  monthly,  as  per  official  require- 
ments. 

Not  only  has  the  class  of  immigrants  going  to  the 
Canadian  Northwest,  during  the  past  three  or  four 
months,  been  of  a  highly  desirable  sort,  but  the  whole 
immigration  to  Canada,  for  Eastern  Provinces  and  for 
the  United  States,  has  shown  some  improvement  dur- 
ing this  time.  The  two  nationalities  which  gave  us 
the  greatest  concern  last  year  have  shown  very  per- 
ceptible decreases,  /'.  e.,  Hebrews  and  Syrians. 

The  former  were  unquestionably  sent  to  the  United 
States  from  Europe  via  Canada  to  avoid  the  effects  of 
examination  at  United  States  ports,  but  on  learning 
that  the  Bureau  had  taken  definite  and  permanent  steps 
to  counteract  the  deflection  from  United  States  ports  to 
Canadian  ports  the  practice  was  gradually  discontinued, 
and  now  the  border  boards  of  special  inquiry  have  com- 
paratively few  cases  of  the  Hebrew  race  to  examine. 

A  precisely  similar  condition  prevails  as  to  the  Sy- 
rians, though  in  the  latter  case  the  change  has  been 
brought  about  by  the  vigorous  policy  of  prosecution 
which  has  been  waged  against  professional  Syrian 
smugglers  of  aliens  into  the  United  States  via  the  Ca- 
nadian frontier. 

The  smugglers'  business  has  been  made  so  difficult, 
dangerous,  and  expensive  that  most  of  them  have 
ceased  to  advertise  in  Europe,  and  in  consequence  the 
arrivals  of  Syrians  and  Armenians  have  appreciably  de- 
creased; but  it  is  said  that  they  will  try  to  continue 
their  business  on  the  Mexican  border. 

The  most  notable  increase  has  been  among  the  Scan- 
dinavians, and  as  this  class  generally  seeks  employ- 
ment in  agricultural  pursuits  and  avoids  the  congested 
areas  of  population,  it  is  a  happy  feature  of  the  work 
of  the  year  to  be  able  to  report  so  desirable  a  change. 


258    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

We  anticipate  still  further  improvement  from  the 
fact  that  the  principal  steamship  company — that  is,  the 
company  carrying  the  greatest  number  of  undesir- 
able immigrants  to  Canada — has  been  purchased  by  the 
Canadian  Pacific  Railway  Company,  and  as  the  latter 
company  has  shown  by  its  policy  that  it  regards  its 
covenant  with  the  United  States  (  Department  Circular 
97)  as  an  active  working  instrument,  to  be  observed  in 
letter  and  spirit,  it  is  presumed  that  this  spirit  will  be 
extended  to  the  operation  of  its  newly  acquired  prop- 
erty, the  immigrant-carrying  vessels  of  the  Elder- 
Dempster  Steamship  Company. 

There  has  not  yet  been  sufficient  time  in  which  to 
note  the  actual  effect  of  this  change,  but  so  far  indica- 
tions quite  warrant  the  foregoing  observation. 

Adequate  detention  quarters  have  not  hitherto  been 
provided  at  any  of  the  Canadian  ports,  and  much  diffi- 
culty has  resulted  from  this  lack.  No  fewer  than  150 
rejected  aliens.at  Halifax,  N.  S. ;  St.  John,  N.B.,  and  Que- 
bec, Que.,  have  failed  of  deportation  solely  on  this  ac- 
count, but  arrangements  are  now  perfected  for  the 
making  of  necessary  provisions  of  this  character,  and 
further  trouble  in  this  connection  is  not  expected. 

It  ought  to  be  stated  that  the  150  escapes  alluded  to 
were  not  allowed  to  enter  the  United  States,  and  that 
almost  the  entire  number  escaped  prior  to  the  promul- 
gation of  the  Canadian  act  of  Parliament  which  legal- 
ized deportations. 

In  the  annual  report  for  the  fiscal  year  ended  June  30, 
1902,  it  was  recommended  that  none  but  strong,  vig- 
orous, young,  and  hardy  men  be  assigned  to  this  juris- 
diction, and  it  is  with  peculiar  pleasure  that  I  report 
that  that  recommendation  has  been  literally  accepted 
and  acted  upon.  It  would  be  a  very  difficult  matter  to 
find  in  any  given  line  of  work  a  more  capable,  efficient, 
devoted  class  of  officers  than  the  men  who  have  made 
it  possible  for  such  a  gratifying  report  as  this  to  be 
written. 

Covering  a  direct  line  of  more  than  4,000  miles  of 
frontier,  including  three  ocean  ports,  and  inspecting 
more  than   100  trains  daily  and  a  large  number  of  fer- 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     259 

ries,  "sound  steamers,"  and  the  growing  fleets  that 
ply  the  Great  Lakes,  these  inspectors,  in  all  kinds  of 
inclement  weather,  and  frequently  under  most  try- 
ing circumstances,  have  boarded  every  train,  met  every 
ferry  and  every  steamer,  whether  by  river,  lake,  or 
sound,  and  have  prevented  the  amazing  total  of  5,158 
diseased  and  otherwise  objectionable  aliens  from  en- 
tering the  United  States,  and  have  done  all  this  with- 
out delaying  either  train  or  boat  for  a  moment,  and, 
what  is  still  more  remarkable,  without  causing  a  single 
complaint  on  the  part  of  the  traveling  public. 

This  manifests  a  commendable  devotion  to  duty, 
which  the  Bureau  will,  no  doubt,  fully  appreciate 
when  considering  the  year's  work  thus  completed, 
from  the  view-point  of  the  difficulties  incident  to  its 
accomplishment. 

The  officers  are  now  fully  uniformed,  as  per  depart- 
ment regulation,  and  the  traveling  public  no  longer  re- 
sponds reluctantly  to  the  inspectors'  interrogatories; 
on  the  contrary,  the  average  traveler  is  always  ready 
to  impart  the  information  required  by  law,  and  many 
have  shown  a  willingness  to  aid  the  inspectors  in  de- 
tecting the  cunning  devices  of  those  who  live  by  evad- 
ing the  law. 


The  showing  of  thirty  successful  captures  and  pros- 
ecutions is  a  very  remarkable  one,  especially  when 
viewed  in  the  light  of  the  wide  area  covered  by  the 
prosecutions.  Grand  juries  all  along  the  line,  have 
viewed  the  situation  with  becoming  apprehension,  and 
by  their  verdicts  have  given  us  substantial  aid  in  our 
endeavors  to  make  effective  the  mandates  of  Con- 
gress. 

United  States  attorneys  have  also  given  us  very  able 
support  by  appropriately  presenting  all  the  facts  we  have 
furnished  them  to  the  grand  juries  and  the  courts. 

There  are  exceptions  to  every  rule,  however,  and  1 
regret  to  have  to  announce  one  in  this  respect. 

On  May  14,  1903,  one  Lewis  Feighner  deliberately 
took  twenty  aliens  over  the  border  of  North  Dakota  in 


260    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

wagons.  Of  these,  nineteen  were  afflicted  with  tra- 
choma, and  all  of  them  had  been  lawfully  excluded 
from  the  United  States.  Feighner  set  the  law  at  defiance 
and  furnished  wagon  transportation  when  the  railroad 
companies  refused  to  carry  them. 

The  whole  party  was  taken  into  custody  at  Grand 
Forks,  N.  Dak.,  and  returned  to  Winnipeg  by  officers 
of  the  Bureau,  and  Feighner  placed  under  arrest.  The 
grand  jury  indicted  him  (  Feighner)  on  June  12,  and  the 
following  day  rescinded  its  action,  and  he  is  at  present 
free  and  unpunished. 

On  the  same  date  a  United  States  attorney  refused  to 
prosecute  an  offender  of  this  class  for  reasons  not  yet 
disclosed. 

This  offender  presented  himself  at  our  Winnipeg 
office  and  demanded  to  know  why  his  brother  could 
not  go  to  the  United  States,  and  he  was  told  that  it 
was  because  he  was  contagiously  diseased. 

He  took  said  alien  into  the  United  States  with  him, 
in  utter  defiance  of  the  officers  of  the  law.  The  alien  was 
arrested  on  a  Treasury  Department  warrant  and  in  due 
time  was  deported  to  Europe,  and  the  offender  was  ar- 
rested also  and  held  under  bail  for  action  of  the  grand 
jury,  but  when  the  grand  jury  met  the  United  States  at- 
torney refused  to  prosecute. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  why  a  sworn  officer  of 
the  law  could  refuse  to  prosecute  so  serious  a  violation 
of  the  law. 

In  striking  contrast  with  this  case  is  that  of  an  alien 
who,  after  being  duly  inspected  at  Quebec, forged  an  ad- 
ditional name  to  his  certificate,  by  virtue  of  which  he 
attempted  to  take  a  diseased  alien  with  him  into  the 
United  States,  over  the  Vermont  border.  The  viola- 
tion was  discovered,  and  both  were  prevented  from 
entering,  the  diseased  alien  being  deported,  and  the 
offender  has  suffered  imprisonment  in  default  of  bail 
(five  months)  and  paid  a  fine  of  $50. 

Attempts  to  defeat  the  law  have  been  made  by  pro- 
viding aliens  with  naturalization  papers,  but  on  inves- 
tigation we  discovered  sufficient  evidence  to  warrant  us 
in  calling  the  matter  to  the  attention  of  the  Department 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     261 

of  Justice,  and  on  June  25,  1903,  we  succeeded  in  con- 
victing the  principal  figure  in  the  scheme,  and  he  is 
now  undergoing  a  two  years'  term  of  imprisonment 
in  the  Detroit  house  of  correction. 

The  public  press  somewhat  severely  criticised  us 
during  the  month  of  September,  1902,  owing  to  a 
young  Syrian  girl  having  committed  suicide  while  be- 
ing deported  to  Europe. 

The  press  did  not,  however,  publish  the  fact  that  the 
same  girl  had  been  twice  deported  to  Europe  from 
New  York,  and  that  when  taken  into  custody  at  De- 
troit she  was  being  smuggled  into  the  United  States  by 
a  lawless  element  who  not  only  ignore  our  laws  but 
who  derisively  defy  the  officers  of  the  law. 

At  the  time  the  unfortunate  girl  took  her  own  life 
she  was  made  aware  for  the  first  time  that  the  man  she 
had  expected  to  marry  had  married  another  girl  some 
few  weeks  previously,  and  this  was  probably  the  real 
cause  of  her  rash  act.  At  any  rate  she  was  treated 
with  every  humane  consideration  by  us,  and  so  far  as 
that  is  concerned,  she  had  no  more  cause  to  complain 
than  any  one  of  the  thousands  who  were  similarly  de- 
ported, none  of  whom  made  any  complaint  of  our 
treatment  of  them. 

Concerning  those  who  smuggled  her  into  the  United 
States,  we  caused  their  arrest,  and  the  Federal  grand 
jury,  on  learning  all  the  facts,  indicted  the  principal, 
who  was  subsequently  convicted  and  fined  $250, 
which  is  an  appropriate  answer  to  the  sensational  stor- 
ies circulated  by  a  misinformed  or  a  malicious  class. 

The  immigrant  inspectors  on  the  frontier  are  fully 
conscious  of  the  fact  that  the  average  immigrant  who 
is  detained  for  cause  is  far  more  a  fit  object  for  pity 
than  one  deserving  censure,  and  while  called  upon  to 
perform  the  unpleasant  duty  of  denying  them  the  cov- 
eted admission  to  the  United  States,  that  duty  is  in- 
variably performed  with  a  maximum  of  humane  con- 
sideration. 

It  is  due  to  the  two  principal  railroads,  who  are  sig- 
natories to  the  agreement  under  which  we  are  operat- 
ing, to  state  that  their  interpretation  of  the  agreement, 


262    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

clause  by  clause  and  line  by  line,  has  been  in  exact  ac- 
cord with  the  views  held  by  the  Bureau. 

Free  and  full  access  to  all  their  trains  has  been  ac- 
corded your  inspectors,  free  transportation  being  fur- 
nished them  that  the  inspections  may  be  completed  be- 
fore the  trains  reach  the  border. 

They  have  removed  from  their  trains  at  the  border 
all  objectionable  aliens,  and  have  detained  them  at  their 
own  expense  until  the  Government's  disposition  of 
them  has  been  made. 

Their  instructions  to  all  ticket  agents  and  train  hands 
have  been  in  keeping  with  our  requests,  and  one  result 
of  these  instructions  has  been  the  refusal  to  sell  tickets 
to  more  than  7,000  aliens  until  they  first  produce  evi- 
dence to  prove  their  admissibility  to  the  United  States, 
and  in  every  case  they  have  directed  said  aliens  to  the 
nearest  United  States  immigration  office. 

So  far  as  these  railway  lines  are  concerned,  up  to  this 
time  there  is  nothing  left  to  be  desired  as  to  the  obser- 
vation of  the  terms  of  the  agreement  into  which  they 
have  entered  with  the  United  States  Government  in  re- 
gard to  immigration. 

A  reference  to  the  number  of  exclusions  on  account 
of  violation  of  the  alien  contract-labor  laws  will  be  of 
undoubted  interest. 

Employers  have  unquestionably  made  use  of  Canada 
as  a  source  through  which  to  draw  employees  in  many 
branches  of  industry.  The  testimony  of  the  rejected 
aliens  under  this  head  leaves  no  room  for  doubt  on  this 
point,  and  while  we  have  been  unable  to  deport  any  of 
them  direct  to  Europe  from  a  Canadian  port,  admission 
to  the  United  States  has  been  denied  them,  and  they 
have  been  compelled  to  remain  in  Canada. 

Some  of  them  have  subsequently  tried  to  effect  sur- 
reptitious entry  to  the  United  States,  but  owing  to  the 
system  of  inspection  in  vogue  all  along  the  line  they 
have  failed,  and  for  their  temerity  have  been  deported 
to  Europe  via  New  York,  and  the  pursuance  of  this 
policy  has  had  a  very  salutary  effect  on  others,  who  are 
quite  as  anxious  to  evade  the  law,  but  who  are  of  less 
defiant  demeanor. 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     263 

.During  the  periods  of  great  industrial  strife,  to  wit, 
the  anthracite  coal  strike  and  cotton  workers'  lockout 
at  Lowell,  Mass.,  it  required  constant  and  unflagging 
attention  to  duty  on  the  part  of  the  entire  force  to  pre- 
vent violations  of  the  alien  contract-labor  laws,  and  the 
Bureau  will  doubtless  agree  with  me  that  the  absence 
of  the  serious  complaint  on  the  part  of  the  United  States 
workmen  involved  amply  attests  that  the  law  was  re- 
markably well  enforced  under  the  circumstances. 

It  is  the  common  opinion  of  all  the  inspectors  at  im- 
portant border  gateways  that  the  majority  of  aliens 
seeking  admission  to  the  United  States  in  violation  of 
the  alien  contract-labor  law  are  thoroughly  advised  be- 
fore leaving  Europe  that  the  Canadian  frontier  affords 
the  easiest  access  to  the  United  States  ;  indeed  their 
testimony  compels  this  conclusion. 

Special  cases  might  be  mentioned  in  wearying  de- 
tail, but  I  purpose  mentioning  one  case  only,  and  will 
ask  you  to  accept  it  as  a  criterion  and  to  judge  whether 
it  justifies  the  conclusion  aforementioned. 

On  June  6,  1903,  fifty-four  aliens  applied  for  admis- 
sion to  the  United  States  at  Winnipeg,  Manitoba,  their 
destination  being  Caro,  Mich. 

The  testimony  of  this  party  conclusively  proved  that 
they  were  engaged  in  Europe,  that  all  their  expenses 
were  paid  by  their  prospective  employers,  and  that 
they  were  advised  to  reach  their  destination  via  Win- 
nipeg, Manitoba.  This  route  involved  a  journey  of 
2,000  miles  farther  than  was  necessary  and  a  corre- 
sponding unnecessary  expense. 

There  can  be  but  one  reason  for  this,  and  that  is  that 
the  Canadian  frontier  as  far  west  as  Sault  Ste  Marie 
was  known  to  be  well  guarded,  while  the  frontier 
west  of  that  point  was  supposed  to  be  wide  open,  and 
it  goes  without  saying  that  for  the  same  reason  the 
United  States  ocean  ports  of  entry  were  also  avoided. 


Special  stress  must  be  laid  on  the  recommendation 
that  none  but  young,  active,  strong,  and  robust  men 
should  be  assigned  to  duty  on  the  frontier,  and  they 


264     IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

should  be  selected  with  a  view  to  putting  none  but 
men  of  good  judgment  in  these  places  of  unusual  im- 
portance and  responsibility. 

A  maintenance  of  the  present  system  of  border  in- 
spection must  inevitably  reflect  the  wisdom  thereof  in 
the  returns  of  the  almshouses,  hospitals,  asylums,  and 
other  places  of  refuge  which  aliens  have  previously 
been  wont  to  seek,  for  of  the  5,158  denied  admission 
at  border  stations  it  is  not  improbable  that  a  very  large 
number  of  them  would  already  be  a  charge  on  the  tax- 
payers of  whatever  community  in  which  they  might 
have  settled  had  they  been  admitted,  and  the  1,439  suf- 
fering from  the  dangerous,  loathsome,  contagious 
diseases  would  certainly  have  been  a  hidden  menace  to 
public  health,  and  an  element  of  deterioration  to  the 
general  hygienic  standard  of  the  States  in  which  they 
would  have  settled. 

Every  one  of  the  diseased  aliens  reported  herein  was 
examined  under  most  careful  circumstances  by  a  corps 
of  medical  examiners  of  high  repute  for  proficiency, 
whose  official  certificates  in  writing  are  on  file  here  in 
each  and  every  case,  which  will,  when  duly  consid- 
ered, serve  to  demonstrate  what  a  very  serious  omis- 
sion it  was  to  leave  the  frontier  subject  to  the  methods 
in  vogue  until  recently  in  matters  of  immigration. 

This  report  will  undoubtedly  show  that  immigration 
from  foreign  contiguous  territory  is  susceptible  of  ade- 
quate control,  and  the  Government  can  select  its  future 
citizens  with  as  much  care  through  this  channel  as 
through  its  ocean  ports  of  arrival,  and  successfully  ex- 
clude all  who  would  tend  to  pollute  rather  than  to  pro- 
mote the  general  body  politic. 
Respectfully, 

Robert  Watchorn,  Commissioner. 
Hon.  F.  P.  Sargent, 
Commissioner-General  of  Immigration, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

Of  new  legislation  there  is  an  abundance  in  prospect, 
varying  all  the  way  from  the  carefully  considered  bill 


Nicola  Curro  at  Work— Ina  Americanized — Saint's  Figure, 
Covered  with  Bags  of  Money 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     265 

introduced  by  Senator  Lodge,  of  Massachusetts,  to  im- 
pose an  educational  test  and  exclude  illiterate  immi- 
grants, to  the  wildly  impractical  measure  introduced 
by  Representative  Adams,  of  Pennsylvania,  a  Congress- 
man from  a  district  that  is  filling  up  with  immigrants, 
and  who  would  limit  the  number  of  aliens  who  may 
enter  the  country  in  any  one  year  to  80,000.  1  won- 
der how  he  would  select  them  from  a  million,  by  com- 
petitive examinations  in  twenty  languages  and  three 
hundred  dialects,  and  a  series  of  gymnastic  events  to 
determine  physical  fitness  ?  What  proportion  of  men, 
women,  or  children  would  he  admit? 

Representative  Simmons  has  introduced  a  bill  which 
would  establish  a  system  of  State  bureaus  which 
should  set  forth  to  arriving  immigrants  the  advantages 
of  each  particular  portion  of  the  country.  If  all  or  even 
a  large  portion  of  the  immigrants  came  with  unsettled 
plans  or  uncertain  destinations,  this  would  be  an  ex- 
cellent plan,  providing  that  Italian  farmers,  who  are 
accustomed  to  farming  with  a  spade,  were  not  de- 
flected to  agricultural  districts  where  sulky  plows  and 
three-horse  teams  are  necessary,  and  Scandinavian 
agriculturists,  learning  of  the  wealth  of  the  valley  of 
the  Red  River,  did  not  go  there  expecting  to  maintain 
their  health  in  a  climate  entirely  different  in  the  mean 
from  that  to  which  they  have  been  accustomed. 

There  is  a  great  amount  of  wisdom  in  portions  of 
the  following  extracts  from  Commissioner  Sargent's  last 
Report,  selected  from  under  the  titles  of  "  Distribution 
and  Naturalization"  and  "New  Legislation,"  and  each 
recommendation  would  undoubtedly  serve  to  increase 
the  efficiency  of  our  present  system  and  bring  about  a 
betterment  of  the  condition  of  immigrants  at  present 
in  the  country  as  well  as  to  assist  those  who  might  ar- 


266    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

rive  in  future;  but  their  great  drawback  is  that  they 
are  patches  on  a  system  which  is  fundamentally  wrong 
in  itself. 

It  is  impossible  for  any  but  the  most  reckless  or  fool- 
ishly optimistic  to  consider  the  figures  presented  in  this 
report  without  realizing  their  serious  bearing  upon  our 
well-being.  It  is  not  alone  that  virtually  1,000,000 
aliens  have  been  added  to  our  population  within  the 
brief  space  of  one  year,  although  that  fact  is  one  of 
large  dimensions.  The  constituent  elements  of  this 
great  army  of  invasion  are  to  be  considered,  their  indi- 
vidual character  and  capacity  for  useful  work,  their 
respect  for  law  and  order,  their  ability  to  stand  the 
strain— morally,  physically,  mentally— of  the  life  of  their 
new  surroundings;  in  other  words,  the  power  to  as- 
similate with  the  people  of  this  country  and  thus  be- 
come a  source  of  strength  for  the  support  of  American 
institutions  and  civilization  instead  of  a  danger  in 
periods  of  strain  and  trial.  To  doubt  that  they  possess 
such  ability  is  to  discredit  unvarying  human  experience. 
Human  beings  vary  not  so  much  because  of  any  in- 
herent difference  of  nature  as  because  of  difference  in 
the  molding  influences  of  which  at  every  stage  of  de- 
velopment they  are  the  product.  All  instruction  of 
mind  and  training  of  body  constitute  a  practical  recog- 
nition of  this  fact.  The  problem  presented,  therefore, 
to  enlightened  intelligence  for  solution,  is  how  may  the 
possibility — nay,  probability — of  danger  from  an  enor- 
mous and  miscellaneous  influx  of  aliens  be  converted, 
by  a  wise  prevision  and  provision,  into  a  power  for 
stability  and  security  ?  If  such  a  solution  can  be  ob- 
tained, it  seems  the  part  of  foolhardiness  to  make  no 
effort  to  that  end,  to  trust  fatuously  to  the  circumstance 
that,  though  numerically  immigration  was  years  ago 
nearly  as  large  in  proportion  to  our  population  as  it  now 
is,  no  very  serious  ill  resulted  from  the  failure  to  take 
any  especial  care  in  reference  to  it  other  than  an  in- 
spection at  the  time  of  arrival. 

In  my  judgment  the  smallest  part  of  the  duty  to  be 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     267 

discharged  in  successfully  handling  alien  immigrants 
with  a  view  to  the  protection  of  the  people  and  insti- 
tutions of  this  country  is  that  part  now  provided  for 
by  law.  Its  importance,  though  undeniable,  is  rela- 
tively of  secondary  moment.  It  cannot,  for  example, 
compare  in  practical  value  with,  nor  can  it  take  the 
place  of,  measures  to  ensure  the  distribution  of  the 
many  thousands  who  come  in  ignorance  of  the  indus- 
trial needs  and  opportunities  of  this  country,  and,  by 
a  more  potent  law  than  that  of  supply  and  demand, 
which  speaks  to  them  here  in  an  unknown  tongue, 
colonizes  alien  communities  in  our  great  cities.  Such 
colonies  are  a  menace  to  the  physical,  social,  moral, 
and  political  security  of  the  country.  They  are  hot- 
beds for  the  propagation  and  growth  of  those  false 
ideas  of  political  and  personal  freedom  whose  germs 
have  been  vitalized  by  ages  of  oppression  under  un- 
equal and  partial  laws,  which  find  their  first  concrete 
expression  in  resistance  to  constituted  authority,  even 
occasionally  in  the  assassination  of  the  lawful  agents 
of  that  authority.  They  are  the  breeding-grounds  also 
of  moral  depravity;  the  centres  of  propagation  of 
physical  disease.  Above  all,  they  are  the  congested 
places  in  the  industrial  body  which  check  the  free  cir- 
culation of  labor  to  those  parts  where  it  is  most  needed 
and  where  it  can  be  most  benefited.  Do  away  with 
them,  and  the  greatest  peril  of  immigration  will  be  re- 
moved. 

Removed  from  the  sweat-shops  and  slums  of  the 
great  cities,  and  given  the  opportunity  to  acquire  a 
home,  every  alien,  however  radical  his  theories  of 
government  and  individual  right  may  have  been,  will 
become  a  conservative — a  supporter  in  theory  and 
practice  of  those  institutions  under  whose  benign  pro- 
tection he  has  acquired  and  can  defend  his  household 
goods.  Suitable  legislation  is  therefore  strongly  urged 
to  establish  agencies  by  means  of  which,  either  with  or 
without  the  co-operation  of  the  States,  aliens  shall  be 
made  acquainted  with  the  resources  of  the  country  at 
large,  the  industrial  needs  of  the  various  sections  in 
both  skilled  and  unskilled  labor,  the  cost  of  living,  the 


268     IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

wages  paid,  the  price  and  capabilities  of  the  lands,  the 
character  of  the  climates,  the  duration  of  the  seasons, — 
in  short,  all  of  that  information  furnished  by  some  of 
the  great  railway  lines  through  whose  efforts  the  terri- 
tory tributary  thereto  has  been  transformed  from  a 
wilderness  within  a  few  years  to  the  abiding-place  of 
a  happy  and  prosperous  population. 

Another  means  of  obviating  danger  from  our  grow- 
ing immigration  is  the  enactment  of  legislation  to  pre- 
vent the  degrading  of  the  electorate  through  the  unlaw- 
ful naturalization  of  aliens.  Undoubtedly  such  natural- 
ization is  now  often  granted  upon  very  insufficient  evi- 
dence of  the  statutory  period  of  residence,  a  looseness  in 
the  practice  of  the  courts  which  is  fostered  by  the  heat 
and  zeal  of  partisanship  in  political  contests.  It  rests  with 
Congress  to  prevent  such  abuses,  and  the  consequent 
distrust  in  the  popular  mind  of  the  purity  of  elections, 
by  establishing  additional  requirements  to  be  complied 
with  by  aliens  seeking  the  privilege  of  citizenship. 

Within  the  past  year  the  Bureau  has  established  at 
the  various  ports  of  entry  a  card-index  system,  by  ref- 
erence to  which  the  date  of  the  arrival  and  personal 
identity  can  be  readily  verified.  To  require  every  alien 
applicant  for  naturalization  to  produce  a  certified  copy 
of  such  record,  attested  by  the  signature  and  seal  of 
the  custodian  thereof,  would  substitute  for  the  oral 
testimony  of  professional  witnesses  written  evidence 
of  an  entirely  reliable  character. 

In  addition  to  the  new  legislation  recommended,  I 
have  to  suggest  that  Congress  be  urged  to  strike  out 
from  section  i  of  the  act  approved  March  3,  1903,  the 
words  which  exempt  transportation  companies  from 
the  payment  of  the  head  tax  for  aliens  brought  by 
them,  respectively,  who  profess  to  be  merely  transits 
to  foreign  territory.  It  is  believed  that  that  provision 
was  retained  in  the  act  through  a  clerical  error,  and  its 
elimination  is  recommended  because  of  the  embarrass- 
ments, both  to  the  transportation  lines  and  to  the 
Bureau,  in  its  enforcement.  The  amount  saved  to  the 
passenger  carriers  is  too  trivial  to  justify  the  labor  and 
delay  involved  in  ascertaining  who  are  actually  transits, 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     269 

and  under  the  law  not  properly  subject  to  the  head 
tax,  and  who  are  merely  professing  to  be  such. 

The  new  law  referred  to  above  has  not  been  in  op- 
eration long  enough  to  enable  the  Bureau  to  point  out 
specific  defects  other  than  that  one  just  cited;  but  it 
was  so  carefully  drawn  and  so  aptly  embodies  the  re- 
sults of  the  Bureau's  experience  in  the  ten  years  of  the 
latter's  existence,  that  the  best  results  are  anticipated. 

Irrespective  of  the  effect  in  diminishing  the  number 
of  alien  arrivals,  now  approximating  1,000,000 annually, 
1  am  impressed  with  the  importance  of  still  further 
measures  to  improve  the  quality  of  those  admitted. 
Such  measures  would  be  merely  additional  steps  in  the 
same  direction  already  taken  in  dealing  with  the  ques- 
tion of  immigration  to  this  country.  They  would  in- 
volve no  new  departure  from  a  policy  which  has  been 
pursued  for  years,  and  which  therefore  may  now  be 
assumed  to  be  a  fixed  principle  of  the  United  States  in 
dealing  with  this  subject.  From  this  point  of  view  it 
seems  not  unjust  to  require  of  aliens  seeking  admission 
to  this  country  at  least  so  much  mental  training  as  is 
evidenced  by  the  ability  to  read  and  write.  This  re- 
quirement, whatever  arguments  or  illustrations  may  be 
used  to  establish  the  contrary  position,  will  furnish 
alien  residents  of  a  character  less  likely  to  become  bur- 
dens on  public  or  private  charity.  Otherwise  it  must 
follow  that  rudimentary  education  is  a  handicap  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  a  proposition  that  few  would 
attempt  to  maintain.  It  would  also,  in  a  measure,  re- 
lieve the  American  people  of  the  burden  now  sustained 
by  them  of  educating  in  the  free  schools  the  ignorant 
of  other  countries. 

There  should  also  be  some  requirement  as  to  the 
moral  character  of  such  persons.  The  present  law  ex- 
cludes convicts.  This  only  partially  accomplishes  the 
purpose  of  establishing  a  moral  standard  for  admission 
to  this  country.  Without  attempting  in  the  restricted 
limits  of  this  report  to  indicate  the  method  of  devising 
such  legislation,  it  is  sufficient  to  point  to  the  crim- 
inal record  in  this  country  of  many  aliens  as  a  justifica- 
tion for  this  recommendation.     Before  the  close  of  the 


270    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

next  fiscal  year  the  Bureau  will  be  in  possession  of 
interesting  and  suggestive  data  in  relation  to  this 
subject. 

For  the  purpose  of  distributing  arriving  aliens  in 
accordance  with  the  plan  already  outlined,  it  is  recom- 
mended that  suitable  legislation  be  enacted  for  the 
establishment,  in  connection  with  the  various  immigra- 
tion stations,  more  particularly  the  Ellis  Island  station, 
of  commodious  quarters,  properly  officered,  where 
information  may  be  given  to  the  new  arrivals.  In  such 
quarters  should  be  displayed  maps  of  the  different 
States,  with  descriptive  matter  as  to  the  resources  and 
products  of  each  State,  the  prices  of  land,  the  routes 
of  travel  thereto  and  cost  of  transportation,  the  oppor- 
tunities for  employment  in  the  various  skilled  and  un- 
skilled occupations,  the  rates  of  wages  paid,  the  cost 
of  living,  and  all  other  information  that  would  enlighten 
such  persons  as  to  the  inducements  to  settlement 
therein  offered  respectively  by  the  various  sections  of 
the  United  States.  I  believe  that  such  a  plan  is  entirely 
practicable,  and  that  its  adoption  offers  at  once  the 
easiest  and  most  efficient  solution  of  the  serious  prob- 
lems presented  by  the  enormous  additions  of  alien  pop- 
ulation to  our  great  cities,  and  the  resultant  evils  both 
to  the  people  of  this  country  and  to  the  immigrants. 

For  the  purpose  of  forming  an  approximately  accu- 
rate estimate  of  the  actual  annual  increase  of  the  popu- 
lation of  the  United  States  by  the  immigration  of  aliens, 
it  is  recommended  that  measures  be  taken  to  obtain 
information  of  the  number  of  aliens  departing  annually. 
These  figures  will  be  valuable  to  students  of  the  sub- 
ject as  presenting  both  sides  of  the  case,  and  will  cor- 
rect the  extravagant  estimates  that  may  be  made  from 
reports  of  arrivals  only  as  to  the  actual  size  of  our  alien 
population. 

I  do  not  think  it  is  an  unwarranted  assumption  to  say 
that  in  the  foregoing  chapters  the  frauds  which  are  en- 
acted for  and  among  immigrants  who  sail  from  the 
southern  portions  of  Europe  are  well   disclosed,  and 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     271 

that  sufficient  light  is  thrown  on  the  dark  corners  of 
the  situation  to  enable  thinking  people  to  consider 
understandingly  the  tremendous  problem  before  the 
nation;  but  for  corroboration  of  statements  made  and 
for  new  information  of  a  most  pointed  and  direct 
nature  I  beg  to  submit  the  major  portion  of  the  report 
of  Special  Immigrant-Inspector  Marcus  Braun,1  who 
left  the  United  States  two  or  three  months  previous  to 
the  departure  of  my  wife  and  myself.  It  considers 
many  conditions  among  classes  of  immigrants  which, 
while  not  so  numerous  as  the  Italians,  are  nevertheless 
most  important  factors  in  the  question.  Mr.  Braun 
says: 

New  York,  N.  Y.,  August  24,  1903. 

Sir:  1  have  the  honor  to  make  the  following  report, 
pursuant  to  authority  contained  in  Bureau  Letter  No. 
35,719,  dated  March  21,  1903,  authorizing  me  "to  pro- 
ceed to  such  points  in  Europe  as  may  be  necessary  for 
the  purpose  of  procuring  information  concerning  cer- 
tain knowledge  believed  to  be  possessed  by  the  Italian 
authorities  as  to  emigration  of  undesirable  aliens  to  the 
United  States,  and  also  in  regard  to  persons  who  are 
booking  diseased  and  otherwise  inadmissible  aliens  to 
Vera  Cruz  en  route  to  points  in  the  United  States." 
This  report  is  likewise  made  pursuant  to  directions 
received  from  you  in  personal  interviews  had  on  March 
23,  1903,  authorizing  me  to  procure  general  information 
and  evidence,  where  practicable,  concerning  the  large 
influx  to  the  United  States  of  undesirable  and  inadmis- 
sible aliens,  and  the  methods  employed  by  steamship 
companies,  agents  in  their  employ,  or  other  persons, 
to  induce  such  emigration,  as  is  more  specifically  enum- 
erated in  Bureau  memoranda  containing  the  follow- 
ing specific  questions  and  directions: 

"  1.  What  steps  do  the  steamship  companies  take  at 

1  Exhibits  mentioned  in  Mr.  Braun's  report  are  omitted. 


272    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

European  ports  to  ascertain  if  their  passengers  are 
eligible  for  admission  under  the  law  ? 

"2.  What  secret  instructions  are  given  to  such  pas- 
sengers at  the  various  rendezvous  where  the  govern- 
ment officials  make  their  examinations  ?  Examinations 
usually  made  twenty-four  hours  before  sailing.  This 
is  particularly  true  of  London  and  Liverpool. 

"  3.  How  many  undesirable  aliens  are  brought  from 
the  Continent  to  the  Jewish  shelters  in  Whitechapel, 
London,  weekly,  and  are  there  put  through  a  purifying 
process  preparatory  to  being  shipped  to  the  United 
States  via  Canada  ? 

"4.  What  steps  are  being  taken  at  Marseille,  Ant- 
werp, and  Chiasso  to  deflect  diseased  aliens  from  the 
United  States  ports  to  Canada  and  Mexico  ? 

"5.  Do  Canadian  lines  really  reject  passengers  for 
cause  at  Liverpool,  as  stated  by  them;  and  if  so,  what 
percentage,  and  for  what  causes  ? 

"6.  Are  immigrants  induced  to  ship  to  Canada,  who 
would  otherwise  have  shipped  to  the  United  States,  by 
reason  of  a  cheaper  fare,  to  wit,  the  $2  head  tax  ? 

"7.  Do  all  Canadian  lines  make  the  two  rates  indi- 
cated ?    If  not,  which  ones  do  ? 

"8.  Does  Anton  Fares,  a  'runner'  at  Marseille,  act 
direct  for  certain  lines  ?    If  so,  which  ones  ? 

"9.  It  is  very  important  to  ascertain  if  Frederic  Lud- 
wig  still  represents  the  Beaver  Line  at  Chiasso. 

"10.  Ascertain  how  Hamburg- American  Packet 
Company  secures  the  miserable  people  they  put  off  at 
Halifax,  while  carrying  to  New  York  on  same  line  or 
ship  acceptable  aliens. 

"11.  Note  particularly  report  of  Mr.  Watchorn,  a 
copy  of  which  will  be  supplied.  Would  also  recom- 
mend getting  copy  of  January,  1903,  Blackwood's 
Magazine  and  noting  article  therein  on  Immigration." 

I  desire,  in  addition  thereto,  to  refer  to  directions  con- 
tained in  Bureau  letter  No.  36,663,  dated  April  6,  1903, 
directing  me  to  observe  whether  the  requirements  of 
section  8  of  the  act  of  March  3,  1893,  are  being  com- 
plied with,  to  the  effect  "that  all  steamship  or  trans- 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     273 

portation  companies  engaged  in  the  transportation  of 
aliens  shall  keep  exposed  to  view  in  their  offices  abroad, 
where  tickets  are  sold  to  emigrants,  a  copy  of  the 
United  States  immigration  laws,  printed  in  large  letters 
in  the  language  of  the  country  where  such  offices  are 
located,  and  to  instruct  their  agents,  moreover,  to  call 
the  attention  thereto  of  persons  contemplating  emi- 
gration, etc." 

Subsequent  to  my  return  from  Washington,  after 
receiving  above  instructions  and  directions,  and  until 
my  departure  on  April  9,  1903,  I  was  in  daily  attend- 
ance at  the  Immigration  Bureau  at  Ellis  Island  for  the 
Burpose  of  familiarizing  myself  with  the  work  of  the 
department  as  conducted  at  that  station. 

On  April  9,  1903,  I  sailed  on  the  steamship  Deutsch- 
land,  bound  for  Hamburg,  Germany,  and  arrived  at 
the  latter  place  April  17,  1903.  Having  received  no 
specific  instructions  concerning  any  particular  route 
which  I  was  to  travel  to  procure  the  information  de- 
sired, and  owing  to  the  fact  that  I  frequently  received 
information  which  did  not  permit  of  a  systematic  or 
straight  line  of  travel,  and  prompted  also  by  the  desire 
to  procure  authentic  information  at  the  very  home  of 
the  emigrant,  I  followed  occasional  instances  and  cases 
as  they  presented  themselves  to  me. 

In  all  I  traveled  about  25,000  miles  by  railroad  and 
about  600  miles  by  special  conveyances,  visiting  sub- 
stantially all  the  provinces  and  crown  lands  of  the  fol- 
lowing countries:  Germany,  Austria-Hungary,  Russia, 
Roumania,  Switzerland,  Italy,  France,  Belgium,  Hol- 
land, and  Great  Britain,  making  special  studies  of  the 
subjects  involved  at  the  following  European  ports: 
Hamburg,  Bremen,  Stettin,  Fiume,  Trieste,  Odessa, 
Naples,  Genoa,  Marseille,  St.  Nazaire,  Havre,  Antwerp, 
Rotterdam,  Southampton,  London,  and  Liverpool. 

I  find  upon  investigation  that  the  steamship  com- 
panies carrying  emigrants  from  Naples,  Hamburg,  and 
Rotterdam  are  subjecting  such  emigrants  to  a  strict 
medical  examination  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining 
whether  or  not  they  are  afflicted  with  any  dangerous 
contagious  disease  which  might  prevent  their  landing 


274    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

in  the  United  States;  this  can  be  said  of  almost  all 
European  ports,  but  is  more  strictly  enforced  at  the 
three  ports  enumerated;  at  the  other  ports  there  is  a 
disposition  to  be  more  lax  in  this  respect,  particularly 
at  Havre,  France,  where,  in  the  search  for  persons 
afflicted  with  trachoma,  the  eyeball  is  merely  examined, 
and  no  eyelid  is  turned  up  as  at  the  other  three  ports 
mentioned  above;  the  additional  method  of  the  physical 
examination  employed  is  to  require  the  emigrant  to 
hold  up  his  hands,  which,  of  course,  does  not  permit 
the  discovery  of  any  other  ailments  except  those  visible 
to  the  naked  eye.  Questions  are  also  asked  the  emi- 
grants concerning  other  grounds  of  inadmissibility, 
such  as  whether  the  emigrant  is  a  criminal  or  an  ex- 
convict,  but  no  further  investigation  is  made  in  this 
respect  and  the  answers  given  by  the  emigrant  are 
deemed  sufficient. 

1  did  not  discover  any  secret  instruction  given  to 
passengers  at  the  points  of  embarkation  ;  the  usual 
questions  are  asked  of  the  emigrants,  and  if  correctly 
answered  they  are  permitted  to  proceed,  otherwise 
they  are  refused  ;  the  latter,  however,  is  a  rare  occur- 
rence, for  the  reason  that  almost  all  of  these  emigrants 
arrive  at  the  ports  thoroughly  instructed,  such  instruc- 
tions being  given  them  before  they  start  upon  their 
journey  by  subagents  in  the  employ  of  the  steamship 
companies  or  their  general  agencies.  While  I  have  no 
direct  proof  that  the  steamship  companies  are  directly 
concerned  or  even  tolerate  the  giving  of  these  secret 
instructions,  yet  I  learned  in  the  course  of  my  travels, 
particularly  in  the  countries  of  Austria-Hungary  and 
Russia,  that  a  large  number  of  reputable  persons,  such 
as  priests,  school-teachers,  postmasters,  and  county 
notaries,  are  directly  connected  with  certain  agents 
representing  these  steamship  companies,  and  that  they 
advise  and  instruct  the  emigrants  how  to  procure 
steamship  tickets,  passports,  and  all  other  things  neces- 
sary for  their  travel,  for  all  of  which  they  receive  a 
commission  from  the  agent  employing  them.  It  is  ob- 
vious that  since  the  amount  of  the  earnings  depends 
entirely  upon  the  amount  of  business  procured,  hence, 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     275 

in  their  anxiety,  the  subagents  above  enumerated,  by 
promises  and  in  order  to  earn  a  commission,  induce  a 
large  number  of  persons  to  leave  their  homes  and 
come  to  the  United  States.  The  governments  of  each 
of  these  countries,  in  good  faith,  are  endeavoring  to 
stop  this  sort  of  traffic  and  provide  for  the  punishment 
of  any  person  inducing  another  to  leave  the  country  ; 
but  I  found  that  in  many  of  the  towns  visited  the  local 
authorities  are  in  league  with  the  subagents,  and  their 
business  thrives  practically  with  the  consent  of  the 
officials  whose  duty  it  is  to  prevent  it  ;  this  is  particu- 
larly true  of  Austria-Hungary,  as  I  was  able  to  ascer- 
tain from  personal  interviews  with  a  large  number  of 
emigrants  at  the  Austro-Prussian  border.  I  also  ascer- 
tained that  a  majority  of  these  people  act  for  and  are 
in  the  employ  of  F.  Missler  at  Bremen,  and  The  Anglo 
Continentales  Reise-Bureau  at  Rotterdam.  Upon  ob- 
taining this  information,  together  with  specific  data, 
names  and  addresses  of  these  so-called  subagents,  I 
laid  the  matter  before  Dr.  Koerber,  prime  minister  of 
Austria,  and  Coloman  de  Szell,  prime  minister  of  Hun- 
gary. They  at  first  appeared  incredulous,  and  the  lat- 
ter called  my  attention  to  the  newly  enacted  prohibi- 
tive emigration  laws  of  Hungary,  a  copy  of  which, 
together  with  translations  thereof,  is  hereto  annexed 
and  marked  "  Exhibit  A,  No.  I  "  and  "  Exhibit  A,  No. 
II."  However,  upon  my  submitting  to  them  the  infor- 
mation which  I  had  in  my  possession,  including  the 
names  and  addresses  of  people  who  were  acting  as 
such  agents,  an  investigation  was  caused  at  their  in- 
stance, a  number  of  arrests  made,  and  convictions  had 
for  the  illegal  solicitation  of  emigration.  The  names 
of  these  persons,  together  with  their  addresses  and  vo- 
cations, and  the  periods  for  which  they  were  sentenced, 
are  annexed  hereto  and  marked  "Exhibit  A,  No.  III." 
The  police  officials  in  the  course  of  the  investigation 
made,  which  led  to  the  arrest  of  these  men,  confiscated 
a  large  number  of  letters  and  literature  containing  offers 
and  inducements  to  emigrate.  The  agencies  whence 
this  literature  emanated  also  flood  the  respective  coun- 
tries, particularly  Hungary  and   Croatia,  with  similar 


276    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

literature  through  the  mails,  but  great  vigilance  is  ex- 
ercised by  the  authorities,  and  most  of  these  letters, 
bearing  the  postmark  of  Hamburg,  Bremen,  or  Rotter- 
dam, are  confiscated  and  are  never  delivered  to  the 
addresses,  if,  in  the  judgment  of  the  postal  officials, 
they  contain  enticing  literature  respecting  emigration. 
I  have  seen  at  the  offices  of  the  ministry  at  Budapest  at 
least  one-half  million  of  these  letters  and  documents 
from  time  to  time  confiscated,  and  through  the  courtesy 
of  the  Hungarian  Government  I  was  enabled  to  pro- 
cure a  few  ,of  the  letters  which  I  annex  hereto  and 
mark  respectively  "  Exhibit  B,  No.  I,  II,  III,  IV,  V,  and 
VI."  Some  of  this  literature  has  features  quite  amus- 
ing, and  I  respectfully  beg  to  submit  to  you  a  copy, 
together  with  a  liberal  translation  of  two  poems, 
marked  "Exhibit  C  I,  and  C  II,"  intended  to  work 
upon  the  susceptibility  of  the  plain  peasant  in  order  to 
induce  him  to  emigrate.  I  also  invite  particular  atten- 
tion to  a  slip  which  is  invariably  contained  in  such  let- 
ters sent  through  the  mails  by  F.  Missler,  of  Bremen, 
a  copy  of  which,  together  with  the  translation  thereof,  is 
hereto  annexed  and  marked  ' '  Exhibit  D."  The  idea  of 
sending  out  this  slip  appears  to  be  to  create  the  person 
to  whom  it  is  sent  a  sort  of  a  subagent,  by  offering  him 
a  compensation  of  eight  crowns  for  every  steamship 
ticket  that  he  succeeds  in  selling  to  an  emigrant,  and 
through  this  offer  any  number  of  persons  are  engaged 
as  subagents  for  F.  Missler,  at  Bremen.  The  Anglo- 
Continentales  Reise-Bureau  at  Rotterdam  is  also 
engaged  in  sending  out  personal  letters  to  peas- 
ants, containing  offers  of  commission,  provided  they 
will  procure  for  them  the  sale  of  steamship  tickets.  I 
herewith  annex  one  of  such  letters,  with  a  translation, 
marked  "Exhibit  E." 

With  reference  to  written  question  No.  3,  I  visited 
the  Poor  Jews  Temporary  Shelter,  at  84  Leman  Street, 
Whitechapel,  London,  and  there  interviewed  the  su- 
perintendent, Mr.  J.  Sonper,  from  whom  I  learned  that 
on  the  average  500  Russian,  Polish,  and  Roumanian 
Jews  are  brought  there  weekly  by  steamer  from  either 
Antwerp  or  Rotterdam,  and  are  detained  at  the  Home 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     277 

until  they  are  enabled  to  raise  sufficient  money  with 
which  to  prepay  their  passage  to  America,  or  until  they 
are  in  a  sufficiently  good  condition  to  be  acceptable  to 
the  steamship  companies  at  the  port  at  which  they  in- 
tend to  embark.  Mr.  Sonper  himself  acts  as  an  agent 
for  various  steamship  companies,  and  informed  me 
that  since  the  Canadian  Government  is  equally  strict  as 
the  United  States  Government  in  the  medical  examina- 
tion of  emigrants  he  tries  to  induce  persons  to  go  to 
South  Africa,  but  so  far  he  has  met  with  poor  success, 
for  the  reason  that  persons  under  his  care  all  have  a 
desire  to  go  to  the  United  States.  He  cited  instances 
to  me  where  people  were  detained  by  him  at  the  Jew- 
ish Home  for  as  long  a  period  as  six  months  in  order 
that  they  may  be  properly  prepared  for  their  proposed 
trip. 

A  more  adequate  and  definite  idea  of  the  scope  and 
activity  of  the  Poor  Jews  Temporary  Shelter  may  be 
had  by  examining  the  last  three  annual  reports  of  the 
organization,  a  copy  of  each  of  which  is  hereto  an- 
nexed and  marked  "  Exhibit  X  I,  II,  and  111." 

Concerning  the  steps  taken  at  Marseille.  Antwerp, 
and  Chiasso  to  deflect  the  diseased  emigrants  from  the 
United  States  ports  to  Canada  and  Mexico,  I  beg  to 
state  the  following:  At  Chiasso  this  practice  has  been 
largely  discontinued  since  the  strict  enforcement  of  the 
immigration  laws  of  the  United  States  and  the  strict 
observance  of  the  medical  examinations  at  Canadian 
ports.  At  Antwerp  the  practice  is  still  prevailing, 
though  in  a  lesser  degree,  the  information  given  to  such 
emigrant  being  that  he  sail  to  England,  preferably  to 
London,  whence  his  departure  and  opportunity  of 
landing  in  the  United  States  will  be  much  easier  than 
from  any  other  port.  The  "hotbed"  for  the  deflection 
of  such  diseased  emigrants,  a  majority  of  whom  come 
from  Syria,  Armenia,  and  Greece,  is  Marseille.  There 
are  in  Marseille  about  a  half-dozen  duly  licensed  and 
properly  appointed  steamship  agencies,  each  of  whom 
employs  its  "runners,"  the  most  unscrupulous  of 
whom  is  one  Anton  Fares,  the  publisher  of  the  Syrian 
weekly  Al  Mir  cad.     These  runners  are  at  a  landing 


278    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

whenever    a  steamer  having  such  emigrants  aboard 
arrives  from  Syria,  Turkey,  or  Greece.     These  emi- 
grants are  then  taken  charge  of  by  the  runners  and  es- 
corted to  the  various  emigrants'  headquarters  to  be 
there  examined  and  classified.     Such   of  these  emi- 
grants who  are  not  afflicted  with  some  disease  receive 
the  ordinary  instructions  and  are  shipped  via  regular 
ports   of  embarkation,   mostly  Havre  and  Boulogne. 
Those  found  suffering  from  trachoma  or  favus  are  then 
thoroughly  instructed  and  are  told  that  the  only  way 
for  them  to  effect  an  entrance  to  the  United  States  is 
to  embark  at  St.  Nazaire,  France,  and  sail  on  the  ships 
of  the  French  line  (Compagnie  Generale  Transatlan- 
tique) for  Vera  Cruz,   Mexico,  and,  according  to  the 
personal  statement  made  to  me  by  Fares,  those  emi- 
grants are  then  escorted  across  the  Mexican  border  to 
the  United  States  by  friends  or  people  with  whom  he 
is  connected  in  a  business  way.     Heretofore  entry  into 
the  United  States  from  Mexico  was  effected  by  way  of 
Laredo,  El  Paso,  or  Eagle  Pass,  but  since  the  detention 
and  deportation  of  some  of  these  emigrants  who  thus 
effected  an  entry  to  the  United  States  this  method  was 
abandoned  and  the  above  method  resorted  to.     I  veri- 
fied this   statement   by  personal  investigation   at  St. 
Nazaire  and  from  interviews  had  with  the  Mexican 
and  Cuban  consuls  and  the  manager  of  the  Compagnie 
Generale  Transatlantique,  each  of  whom  informed  me 
that  no  fewer  than  250  emigrants  leave  that  port  on 
the  21st  day  of  each  and  every  month  for  Mexico.     I 
briefly  referred  to  this  condition  of  things  in  my  report 
to  the  Department,  dated,  respectively,  Marseille,  June 
28,  1903,  and  Paris,  Julv  10,  1903.     So  alarming  did  I 
find  these  conditions  at 'St.  Nazaire  that  I  was  prompted 
thereby  to  address  my  cablegram  to  the  Department 
on  July    13,    1903,   suggesting  a  close  watch  on  the 
Mexican  border  outside  of  regular  railroad  passes,  and 
I  also  briefly  referred  to  these  matters  in  subsequent 
communications  to  the  Department.     I  also  ascertained 
that  all  of  the  steamers  plying  between  St.  Nazaire, 
France,  and   Vera   Cruz,  Mexico,  are   controlled   and 
operated  by  the  Compagnie  Generale  Transatlantique, 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     279 

and  that  emigrants  are  booked  directly  from  Beirut, 
Syria,  via  Marseille  and  St.  Nazaire,  to  Vera  Cruz,  as 
more  fully  stated  in  my  previous  communications  to 
the  Department  on  this  subject. 

Regarding  the  question  as  to  whether  Canadian  lines 
really  reject  passengers  for  cause  at  Liverpool,  and 
what  percentage  and  for  what  causes,  I  beg  to  state 
that  I  have  visited  the  various  emigrant  lodging-houses 
at  Liverpool  controlled  by  the  White  Star,  Qinard,  Do- 
minion, American,  Allan,  and  Canadian  Pacific  Railroad 
(Beaver  Line)  lines,  and  found  that  the  emigrants  are 
subjected  to  a  strict  medical  examination,  and  those 
found  suffering  from  trachoma  or  favus  are  promptly 
rejected,  the  proportion  of  such  rejections  not  exceed- 
ing two  per  cent. 

As  to  whether  or  not  emigrants  are  induced  to  ship 
to  Canada,  who  would  otherwise  have  shipped  to  the 
United  States,  by  reason  of  a  cheaper  fare  or  because 
of  the  $2  head  tax,  I  respectfully  submit  that  such 
emigrants  are  frequently,  and  in  a  large  number  of 
cases,  induced  to  ship  to  Canada.  The  reason  for 
this,  however,  is  not  the  desire  to  avoid  the  $2  head 
tax,  but  because  of  the  cheaper  railroad  fares  charged 
to  emigrants  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada  by  the  Cana- 
dian Pacific  Railroad.  In  every  such  case  the  emigrant 
is  invariably  told  that  upon  landing  he  must  state  his 
destination  to  be  some  place  or  town  in  Canada,  where 
he  intends  to  settle.  Having  thus  availed  themselves 
of  the  advantage  of  a  cheaper  fare,  they  then  await 
the  coming  of  an  agent  or  some  person  connected  with 
the  agency  where  they  purchased  their  tickets,  and 
are  escorted  across  the  border  into  the  United  States. 

In  regard  to  the  inquiry  as  to  whether  all  the  Cana- 
dian lines  make  the  two  rates  indicated,  I  desire  to 
report  that  heretofore  the  Beaver  Line  charged  a  cheaper 
rate  of  fare  than  the  other  Canadian  lines;  this,  how- 
ever, has  been  abandoned,  and  at  present  a  uniform 
rate  is  charged  over  all  Canadian  lines.  I  had  an  in- 
teresting and  lengthy  interview  with  Mr.  I.  I.  Gilbert- 
son,  the  Liverpool  traffic  agent  of  the  Canadian  Pacific 
Railway,  which  now  operates  the  former  Beaver  Line 


280    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

under  the  name  of  the  Pacific  Railway  line,  and  learned 
from  him  that,  while  the  line  he  represented  was  not 
in  the  steamship  pool,  he  was  upholding  the  regular 
rates  of  the  pool,  and  had  no  intention  of  deviating 
therefrom.  He  added  that  he  regretted  very  much 
the  bad  repute  into  which  the  Beaver  Line  had  gotten, 
and,  while  he  admitted  that  it  was  partly  justified,  he 
thought  that  it  was  worse  than  deserved.  Mr.  Gilbert- 
son  also  told  me  that  all  of  the  Continental  agents  of 
his  line  have  been  fully  and  thoroughly  instructed  to 
comply  strictly  with  the  immigration  laws  of  both  the 
United  States  and  Canada  in  booking  passengers,  and 
that  under  no  circumstances  would  tickets  be  sold  to 
passengers  for  Quebec  or  Montreal  whose  original 
destination  is  some  part  of  the  United  States. 

In  reply  to  the  inquiry  as  to  whether  Anton  Fares,  a 
runner  at  Marseille,  acts  direct  for  certain  lines,  I  beg 
to  refer  to  my  previous  reports  to  the  Department 
made  in  this  connection,  wherein  I  stated,  among 
other  things,  that  Fares  does  not  represent  any  line 
directly,  but  that  his  services  are  very  much  sought 
after  by  all  of  the  agencies  established  at  Marseille,  and 
I  reiterate  that  he  is  one  of  the  most  dangerous  and 
unscrupulous  men  in  the  business. 

Replying  to  the  inquiry  as  to  whether  Frederic  Lud- 
wig  still  represents  the  Beaver  Line  at  Chiasso,  I  like- 
wise beg  to  refer  to  my  report  on  this  subject,  dated 
Chiasso,  June  25,  1903,  and  1  reiterate  that  Ludwig  still 
represents  the  Beaver  Line  at  Chiasso,  but  apparently 
does  not  book  any  diseased  emigrants  and  invariably 
causes  a  physician  to  examine  his  passengers.  In  all 
other  respects,  however,  I  found  Ludwig  as  active, 
energetic,  and  reckless  in  the  pursuit  of  his  business 
as  ever  before,  as  a  result  of  which  he  was  arrested  in 
Italy  for  soliciting  emigration,  released  on  bail  of  20,000 
lire  pending  his  trial,  and  subsequently  "jumped"  his 
bail,  forfeiting  the  amount. 

In  regard  to  the  question  as  to  how  the  "  Hamburg- 
American  Packet  Company  secures  the  miserable  peo- 
ple they  put  off  at  Halifax,  while  carrying  to  New 
York  on  same  line  or  ship  acceptable  aliens,"  I  respect- 


Nicola  Curro  Studying  English  in  the  Author's  Home  in 

New  York 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     281 

fully  refer  to  my  report  dated  Jassy,  June  17,  1903.     I 
endeavored  to  ascertain  the  method  by  which  these 
persons  referred  to  were  procured,  and  for  this  pur- 
pose  had  an    interview   at    the  steamship   office  of 
George  Stoeckel,  at  Odessa,  by  whose  representative, 
Johann  Bischof,  1  was  informed  that  the  main  reasons 
for  sending  emigrants  into  the  United  States  via  Hali- 
fax were  the  cheaper  rate  and  the  possibility  of  evad- 
ing the  immigration  laws  at  the  Canadian  border  with 
greater   success    than    at    the    United    States    ports. 
Realizing  that  diseased  and  afflicted  emigrants  have 
to  undergo  a  close  inspection  at  a  United  States  port, 
this  agency  of  Stoeckel's  makes  it  a  practice  to  solicit 
the  business  of  such  people  with  the  thorough  under- 
standing that  they  are  to  travel  via  Halifax.     The  said 
agency  has  a  number  of  subagents  traveling  all  over 
the  southern  part  of   Russia,   ostensibly  engaged  as 
agents  for  agricultural  implements,  representing  some 
American  firm,  but  in  reality  only  to  dispose  of  steam- 
ship tickets  and  seek  out  such  persons  who  have  fears 
about  traveling  owing  to  some  affliction  which  would 
prevent  their  admittance    at   a    United    States   port. 
These  people  are  given  every  assurance  that  if  travel- 
ing via  Halifax  they  will  have  to  undergo  very  little 
inspection,  if  any,  and  can  obtain  admittance  into  the 
United  States  without  difficulty.     It  seems  immaterial 
to  these  agents  whether  the  emigrant  would  be  per- 
mitted to  land  or  not,  even  at  Halifax,  for  in  the  latter 
case  he  would  be  deported,  with  no  probability  of  his 
ever  returning  to  Russia,  and  hence  the  agent  would 
escape  all   liability.      Subsequent  to  this   interview  I 
called  on  Mr.  A.  Storm,  manager  of  the  passenger  de- 
partment of  the  Hamburg-American  Line  at  Hamburg, 
and  called  his  attention  to  this  practice,  whereupon  he 
showed  me  copies  of  personal  letters  written  to  all  of 
the  agents  warning  them  not  to  book  any  emigrants 
via  Halifax  intended  for  the  United  States,  with  in- 
struction that  such  emigrants  would  be  refused,  and, 
moreover,  the  agents  would  forfeit  all  commissions, 
the  agency  being  withdrawn  from  them  in  addition. 
My  personal  investigation  seemed  to  confirm  this  state- 


282    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

ment  of  Mr.  Storm,  for  the  reason  that  prior  to  my 
going  to  Odessa  I  frequently  found  circulars  inviting 
emigration  to  the  United  States  via  Hamburg  to  Hali- 
fax, one  of  which  circulars  1  annex  to  this  report, 
marked  "  Exhibit  F  I."  Later  on,  however,  I  failed  to 
find  any  of  these  circulars  except  in  rare  instances, 
but  instead  found  a  large  number  of  circulars  sent  out 
by  Falck  &  Co.,  general  agents  of  the  Hamburg-Ameri- 
can Line,  specially  calling  the  attention  of  the  proposed 
emigrants  to  the  advisability  of  having  themselves 
examined  by  a  physician  prior  to  their  departure,  to 
ascertain  whether  they  are  suffering  from  trachoma  or 
favus,  and  informing  them  of  the  fact  that  if  suffering 
from  any  of  these  diseases  they  will  be  barred  from 
landing  in  America,  regardless  as  to  what  route  they 
took.  1  inclose  two  copies  of  such  circulars,  one  in 
Slovak  and  the  other  in  Hungarian,  together  with  a 
translation,  marked  "Exhibit  F  II." 

Following  your  instructions  to  investigate  the  fact 
as  to  whether  steamship  companies  or  transportation 
companies  engaged  in  the  transportation  of  aliens 
observe  the  requirements  of  section  8  of  the  act  of 
March  3,  1893,  I  called  your  attention  in  some  of  my 
previous  reports  to  instances  where  the  law  was  not 
observed.  However,  the  law  is  observed  by  the  ma- 
jority of  the  steamship  companies,  but,  I  am  satisfied, 
not  in  an  effective  manner.  It  is  true  that  a  copy  of 
the  law  is  displayed  in  the  language  of  the  country 
where  such  steamship  offices  are  located,  but  it  is 
equally  true  that  very  few  of  the  emigrants  have  the  time 
or  the  inclination  to  read  it,  and  as  a  large  percentage  of 
them  are  unable  to  read  at  all  it  tends  to  make  the  law 
of  very  little  if  any  value.  At  the  border  of  Russia 
and  Germany  this  law  referred  to  is  displayed  in  the 
German  language,  and  I  found  that  the  great  majority 
of  emigrants  are  Russians,  Poles,  and  Hebrews,  none  of 
whom  can  read  or  understand  the  German  language. 

I  desire  to  invite  your  particular  attention  to  instruc- 
tions contained  in  Bureau  letter  No.  35,719,  dated 
March  21,  1903,  authorizing  me  "to  procure  informa- 
tion concerning  certain  knowledge  believed  to  be  pos- 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     283 

sessed  by  the  Italian  authorities  as  to  emigration  of 
undesirable  aliens  to  the  United  States,"  and  to  per- 
sonal directions  upon  this  point  given  me  in  our  in- 
terview on  March  2},  1903.  I  have  made  thorough 
investigations  to  ascertain,  if  possible,  first,  whether  or 
not  such  knowledge  is  really  possessed  by  the  Italian 
authorities,  and,  second,  in  what  measure  this  circum- 
stance was  instrumental  in  encouraging  undesirable 
emigration  to  the  United  States.  I  find  a  general  dis- 
position on  the  part  of  the  Italian  Government  and 
authorities  to  restrict  emigration  of  persons  visibly 
afflicted  by  some  disease,  this  restriction  being  by  no 
means  made  for  the  benefit  of  the  United  States,  but 
because  of  the  opinion  that  the  influx  from  Italy  of 
this  class  of  people  might  cause  the  United  States 
Government  to  enact  more  prohibitive  immigration 
laws,  a  thing  very  much  feared  in  Italy,  for  the  reason 
that  Italy  considers  the  United  States  the  best  safety 
valve  for  the  discharge  of  its  over-population.     More 

Brohibitive  immigration  legislation  on  the  part  of  the 
Inited  States,  if  it  would  materially  affect  the  influx 
of  Italian  emigrants  to  the  United  States,  might,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  Italian  people,  have  the  effect  of  reducing 
a  great  many  of  their  revenues.  I  have  ascertained 
that  the  prosperity  of  entire  villages  in  the  southern 
part  of  Italy  depends  upon  remittances  regularly  made 
from  the  United  States. 

The  Italian  authorities,  as  such,  profess  to  have  no 
such  knowledge  of  undesirable  emigration  as  indicated 
in  your  personal  interview  with  me.  Pauperism  in 
Italy  is  differently  construed  than  in  the  United  States. 
Over  there  no  person,  no  matter  how  poor  he  may  be, 
is  considered  a  pauper  so  long  as  he  appears  to  be 
able-bodied  and  is  in  a  condition  to  walk  about,  and 
no  person  is  committed  to  the  poorhouse  unless 
physically  disabled  to  such  an  extent  as  to  be  unable 
to  be  about  without  the  assistance  of  another,  and  if 
placed  in  the  poorhouse  under  those  circumstances 
there  is  no  possibility  of  their  ever  attempting  to  come 
to  the  United  States.  These  are  the  only  paupers  of 
whom  a  record  is  kept  by  the  authorities,  and  who  are 


284    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

recorded  as  public  charges  upon  the  respective  com- 
munities. Of  the  other  class  of  poor  people,  who  are 
not  only  in  the  prevailing  majority,  but  who  constitute 
a  material  part  of  the  Italian  population,  and  who,  ac- 
cording to  American  conceptions,  would  be  considered 
paupers,  no  public  record  is  kept,  except  by  the  priests 
of  the  respective  villages  and  towns  in  which  they  re- 
side. These  people  are  considered  poor  and  are  de- 
pendent upon  the  charities  of  the  Church.  They  can 
obtain  at  any  time  a  certificate  of  poverty,  but  still 
are  not  recorded  as  paupers.  Mr.  Angelo  Boragino, 
deputy  consul  of  the  United  States  at  Genoa,  gave  me 
valuable  assistance  in  my  attempt  to  discover  the  ex- 
istence of  such  records. 

Unlike  Italy,  all  other  countries  do  keep  a  public 
record  of  their  paupers,  copies  of  which  are  obtainable 
at  any  time.  I  beg  to  annex  hereto  two  such  authen- 
ticated copies  of  pauper  records  of  the  township  of 
Klenocz,  Hungary,  and  Nyustya,  Croatia,  marked,  re- 
spectively "  Exhibit  G.  I  "  and  "  Exhibit  G.  II." 

As  already  reported  to  you  in  a  previous  communi- 
cation in  reply  to  Bureau  letter  No.  36,810,  dated 
Washington,  April  14,  1903,  I  located  Joseph  Ellsner  at 
Littai,  Austria,  and  endeavored  to  get  from  him  some 
information  with  reference  to  importation  of  laborers 
under  contract  into  the  United  States.  I  succeeded  in 
obtaining  from  Mr.  Ellsner  a  copy  of  a  letter  addressed 
to  him  by  some  person  from  Chicago,  asking  for  200 
able-bodied  men  to  work  on  the  railroad,  which  letter 
I  mailed  to  you,  together  with  my  said  report  to  the 
Department.  I  sent  you  the  information  that  about 
1,800  Croatians  are  being  shipped  monthly  from  Fiume 
to  the  United  States.  I  endeavored  to  ascertain  the 
purpose  of  this  large  number  of  emigrants,  and  found 
that  quite  a  number  of  them,  especially  in  the  month 
of  August  of  each  year,  were  hired  by  several  Austrian 
firms  to  be  sent  to  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  and  Missis- 
sippi, to  cut  staves,  and  that  some  of  these  firms, 
owing  to  difficulties  which  they  had  in  the  United 
States  with  these  men,  who  made  trouble  and  threats 
against  the  contractors,  abandoned  this  practice,  and  it 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     285 

is  now  largely  controlled  by  the  firm  of  Julius  Kern  & 
Co.,  at  Vienna,  through  whose  agency  some  300  or 
400  men  are  sent  to  the  United  States  at  certain  inter- 
vals. I  paid  particular  attention  to  this  firm  and  em- 
ployed the  friendly  services  of  Mr.  A.  Knoepfelmacher, 
a  journalist,  who  called  at  the  place  of  business  of  Mr. 
Kern  under  the  pretext  of  writing  an  article  upon  the 
enterprising  ability  of  an  Austrian  firm,  such  as  Julius 
Kern  &  Co.,  in  dealing  so  extensively  with  the  United 
States.  The  interview  was  obtained,  and  incidentally 
Mr.  Knoepfelmacher  asked  questions  with  reference 
to  the  sending  of  the  contract  laborers  to  the  United 
States,  and  some  information  was  given  him,  with  the 
strict  injunction,  however,  that  no  part  of  it  should  be 
made  public.  I  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Knoepfel- 
macher which  I  annex  hereto,  together  with  a  trans- 
lation thereof,  marked  "Exhibit  H,"  which  letter 
fairly  expresses  the  contempt  of  these  Europeans  at 
our  contract-labor  laws  and  the  ease  with  which  they 
evade  them.  It  was  admitted  by  the  firm  of  Julius 
Kern  &  Co.  that  as  many  as  1,500  laborers  are  sent  to 
the  United  States  under  contract,  each  of  whom  is 
thoroughly  instructed  as  to  the  manner  in  which  ques- 
tions should  be  answered  when  arriving  in  the  United 
States.  Subsequent  to  the  receipt  of  the  letter  from 
Mr.  Knoepfelmacher  he  accompanied  me  to  the  United 
States  embassy  at  Vienna,  and  there,  in  the  presence  of 
Secretary  Rives,  repeated  the  statements  contained  in 
his  letter.  The  information  1  thus  received,  together 
with  the  positive  knowledge  which  I  possessed  that  a 
great  many  contract  laborers  enter  the  United  States 
annually,  prompted  me  to  pay  particular  attention  to 
this  subject,  and  I  made  various  and  frequent  attempts, 
particularly  at  places  and  railroad  stations  where  emi- 
grants concentrate,  to  question  and  interview  individ- 
uals or  groups  of  emigrants,  with  a  view  of  learning 
their  destination  or  of  affirming  my  belief  that  they 
were  laborers  under  contract,  destined  for  the  United 
States.  Not  only  did  these  interrogations  confirm  my 
suspicions,  but  1  have  become  convinced  that  the  im- 
portation of  contract  labor  to  the  United  States  has  as- 


286    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

sumed  alarming  proportions  of  which  the  Department 
cannot  form  an  adequate  idea.  I  base  this  conviction 
not  only  upon  my  experience  at  the  various  places 
where  emigrants  concentrate,  but  upon  observations 
made  and  collected  in  numerous  villages  which  I 
reached  by  special  conveyance,  and  in  a  large  number 
of  which  I  found  that  almost  the  entire  male  popula- 
tion, able  to  work,  was  absent,  and  upon  close  inquiry 
I  learned  that  the  men  were  all  in  the  United  States, 
having  gone  there  under  some  contract  of  labor  or 
other.  This  evil  is  largely  contributed  to  by  residents 
of  the  United  States  engaged  in  the  steamship  ticket 
and  foreign  exchange  business,  and  not  infrequently 
either  connected  with  or  publishing  some  newspaper 
in  a  foreign  language.  1  took  occasion  to  refer  to  this 
phase  in  one  of  my  previous  reports  to  the  Depart- 
ment, containing  information  in  point  procured  by  me 
at  the  city  of  Laibach  and  from  the  Government  at 
Vienna.  I  am  convinced  that  Fares,  at  Marseille,  also 
avails  himself  of  many  sources  of  this  character  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  nefarious  business,  as  I  was  able  to 
judge  from  the  hundreds  of  letters  I  saw  delivered  to 
him,  coming  from  the  United  States  and  bearing  the 
heading  of  numerous  steamship  ticket  agents  and  pub- 
lishers of  Syrian  newspapers  in  this  country.  Another 
method  which  in  my  opinion  is  frequently  resorted  to 
to  promote  the  importation  of  contract  labor  is  as  fol- 
lows :  A  native  of  a  certain  village  or  town  abroad,  who 
had  spent  some  time  in  the  United  States,  will  suddenly 
appear  at  said  village,  ostensibly  on  a  visit,  and  within 
a  short  time  thereafter  he  may  be  met  on  his  return 
trip  to  the  United  States  accompanied  by  groups  of  men 
whose  number  vary  from  ten  to  twenty-five,  according 
to  circumstances.  I  have  observed  such  men  purchas- 
ing a  number  of  railroad  tickets  at  Oderberg,  on  the 
Austro-Prussian  border,  for  Bremen,  and  distribute 
them  among  the  group  of  men  that  so  accompanied 
him.  I  met  the  same  man,  who  thus  purchased  the 
tickets  at  Oderberg,  a  few  days  later  at  Bremen,  and 
upon  my  questioning  him  for  the  whereabouts  of  his 
friends  I  saw  in  his  company  at  Oderberg  he  denied 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     287 

all  knowledge  of  them  ;  but  I  saw  all  of  them  in  the 
immediate  vicinity,  and  found  that  they  had  steamship 
tickets  in  their  possession  which  were  procured  in  the 
office  of  F.  Missler.  They  were  no  longer  in  groups, 
and  acted  in  a  manner  as  though  they  had  never  seen 
the  man  who  had  led  them,  this  being  evidently  part 
of  their  instructions  and  a  matter  of  precaution.  I 
could  refer  to  hundreds  of  similar  cases  which  I  have 
encountered  in  my  travels  abroad.  Most  of  these 
people  so  interrogated  by  me  were  in  possession  of 
addresses  of  persons  residing  in  the  United  States,  al- 
leged to  be  friends  or  relatives,  but  which,  to  my  best 
impression  and  belief,  were  frequently  fictitious  ad- 
dresses, and  the  addressees  absolutely  unacquainted 
with  the  emigrants  in  question.  Most  of  these  ad- 
dresses referred  to  persons  residing  inland,  particularly 
in  the  States  of  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania,  and  rarely  to 
people  residing  in  New  York  city  or  other  Atlantic  sea- 
ports. Unfortunately,  these  emigrants  are  so  thor- 
oughly instructed  and  prepared,  that  it  is  exceedingly 
difficult  and  almost  impossible  to  gain  an  admission 
from  them  after  they  depart  from  their  respective 
homes. 

Supplementing  a  previous  report  which  I  made  to 
the  Department  concerning  the  prevalence  of  trachoma 
in  various  European  countries,  particularly  Austria- 
Hungary,  Russia,  the  Balkan  States,  and  Italy,  1  re- 
spectfully state  that  so  alarming  and  so  widespread  is 
this  most  dangerous  and  contagious  disease  that  the 
governments  of  the  various  countries  enumerated  have 
adopted  most  heroic  measures  for  its  suppression.  In 
Hungary  this  disease  has  assumed  such  proportions 
that  the  Government  encounters  great  difficulties  in 
some  counties  to  muster  the  required  quota  of  men  for 
military  service,  trachomatic  people  belonging  to  the 
class  which  are  rejected  for  the  army.  To  combat 
and,  if  possible,  to  stamp  out  the  disease,  the  Hun- 
garian Government  maintains  a  special  medical  corps, 
consisting  of  fifty  physicians  who  constantly  travel  to 
and  fro  in  certain  respective  districts  to  which  they  are 
assigned,  it  being  the  duty  of  every  person  to  submit 


288    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

to  an  examination  for  such  disease,  and  if  found  af- 
flicted therewith  to  present  himself  or  herself  for  gra- 
tuitous treatment  twice  a  week  until  cured.  Records 
of  such  trachomatic  persons  are  kept,  and  they  are 
subjected  to  constant  surveillance  in  the  manner  that 
no  person  can  leave  his  respective  district  for  another 
before  first  submitting  to  a  medical  examination  as 
above  outlined;  such  person  is  provided  with  a  book 
in  which  the  physician  of  the  district  makes  an  entry 
that  the  bearer  is  either  free  from  trachoma  or  afflicted 
thereby,  and  if  he  has  undergone  any  treatment,  the 
period  of  such  treatment  is  entered;  upon  the  arrival 
of  such  person  in  another  district  he  or  she  must 
present  himself  or  herself  immediately  to  the  physician 
of  that  district,  and  if  afflicted  with  trachoma  the 
treatment  is  systematically  continued.  Although  this 
rule  is  strictly  enforced,  people  intending  to  emigrate 
rarely  observe  it,  and  in  order  to  be  enabled  to  give 
the  Department  more  definite  information  on  this  sub- 
ject I  accompanied  Dr.  Simon  Buchwald,  one  of  the 
physicians  appointed  by  the  Government  of  Hungary 
for  the  district  of  Lipto-Szt.  Miklos,  on  one  of  his 
tours  through  the  villages  of  his  district,  and  was 
present  at  the  examinations  and  treatment  conducted 
by  him.  I  succeeded  in  obtaining  from  Dr.  Buchwald 
an  extract  of  the  official  record  of  thirty-five  persons 
of  the  age  ranging  from  seventeen  to  forty-two 
years,  who  had  left  the  district  for  the  United  States, 
and  were  afflicted  with  trachoma,  had  been  treated 
by  him,  and  at  the  time  of  their  departure  were 
not  cured.  Only  four  of  these  emigrants  returned  to 
their  respective  homes,  having  been  refused  at  the 
medical  examination,  regularly  held  at  the  control  sta- 
tions of  the  North  German-Lloyd  and  Hamburg-Amer- 
ican lines,  at  the  Austro-Prussian  border,  upon  the 
ground  of  this  very  affliction.  I  annex  the  said  ex- 
tract hereto,  marked  "  Exhibit  I,"  containing  the  names 
of  these  thirty-five  persons,  and  having  underlined 
thereon,  with  red  pencil,  the  names  of  the  four  per- 
sons thus  returned. 
Of  the   countries    enumerated,   Hungary  seems  to 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     289 

have  the  disease  under  best  control,  although  I  can 
state,  on  reliable  information,  that  there  are  at  least 
60,000  persons  in  the  kingdom  of  Hungary  suffering 
from  trachoma.  The  worst  conditions  in  this  respect 
prevail  in  Russia,  where  at  least  thirty  per  cent  of  the 
army  are  afflicted  with  this  dread  disease,  who,  after 
their  discharge  from  the  army,  spread  the  affliction  in 
all  parts  of  the  empire. 

Supplemental  to  my  report  heretofore  submitted  to 
the  Department  upon  the  subject  of  emigration  to 
the  United  States  of  Roumanian  Jews,  1  beg  to  reiterate 
that  the  forwarding  of  these  people  is  conducted 
systematically  and  is  invariably  in  charge  of  the  Jewish 
Colonization  Association.  The  method  pursued  in 
this  instance  is  that  representatives  of  the  Jewish  con- 
gregations in  the  various  places  through  which  these 
emigrants  pass  generally  await  them  at  the  railroad 
stations  and  care  for  their  safe  transportation  to  the 
next  station,  where  the  same  thing  is  repeated,  until 
they  reach  Rotterdam,  from  which  port  they  are  sent 
to  England  for  embarkation  to  the  United  States.  1 
attach  herewith  copy  of  the  usual  letter  sent  by  Doctor 
Lowenstein,  the  representative  at  Bucharest,  Roumania, 
of  the  Jewish  Colonization  Association,  addressed  to 
the  Jewish  congregation  at  Budapest,  together  with  a 
translation  thereof,  advising  said  congregation  of  the 
near  approach  of  a  group  of  such  Jewish  emigrants, 
attaching  also  hereto  a  copy  of  a  list  of  names  of  such 
group  of  emigrants,  marked  "  Exhibit  J." 

With  reference  to  prostitutes  and  women  imported 
for  the  purpose  of  prostitution,  I  have  made  several  re- 
ports to  the  Department,  and,  reiterating  the  same,  I 
beg  to  report  in  addition  as  follows:  In  the  cities  of 
Paris,  Berlin,  Vienna,  Budapest,  Lemberg,  Krakow,  and 
more  particularly  in  Warsaw  and  Wilna,  I  learned 
that  annually  a  number  of  women  and  men  engaged 
in  this  nefarious  business  here  in  the  United  States  pay 
visits  to  the  places  above  enumerated  and  invariably  a 
number  of  such  immoral  women  follow  them  to  the 
United  States.  In  many  instances  these  women  are 
provided  with  American  passports  or  citizen  papers  of 


290    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

their  alleged  husbands  residing  in  the  United  States, 
and  so  widespread  did  I  find  this  traffic  in,  and  issuance 
of,  American  passports  in  Austria-Hungary,  that  I 
deemed  it  my  duty  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Hon. 
Bellamy  Storer,  United  States  ambassador  and  envoy 
plenipotentiary  at  Vienna,  to  the  disgraceful  practice, 
who  again,  on  his  part,  instructed  the  United  States 
consulates  under  his  jurisdiction  to  be  very  careful  here- 
after before  transmitting  requests  for  passports  for 
women  intending  to  go  to  the  United  States  to  join 
their  alleged  husbands,  and  whose  citizen  papers  are 
generally  annexed  to  these  requests. 

I  have  the  honor  also  to  report  that  the  Hon.  Frank 
D.  Chester,  United  States  consul  at  Budapest,  Hungary, 
informed  me  that  there  was  quite  a  traffic  in  United 
States  passports  and  citizen  papers  carried  on  at  the 
city  of  Fiume,  and  that  one  of  his  attaches  had  some 
time  ago  made  a  special  investigation  and  reported 
about  it,  I  believe,  to  the  State  Department  at  Wash- 
ington. In  this  latter  instance,  it  is  my  opinion  that 
the  passports  and  citizen  papers  are  used  mostly  for 
contract  laborers,  for  the  reason  that,  as  I  convinced 
myself  during  my  travel  through  Switzerland,  a  sim- 
ilar traffic  is  carried  on  there  for  the  use  of  contract 
laborers,  who  mostly  come  to  Switzerland  from  the 
southern  part  of  Austria,  Croatia,  and  Dalmatia,  the 
business  of  these  countries,  in  the  way  of  emigration, 
being  done  mostly  by  steamship  agents  located  in 
Switzerland.  There  is  no  doubt  that  hundreds  and 
hundreds  of  citizen  papers  are  being  sent  from  the 
United  States  to  Europe  annually  for  just  these  pur- 
poses. 

Another  practice  which  I  observed  during  my  trip  is 
that  most  emigrants  are  in  possession  of  cards  of 
all  kinds  of  boarding  houses,  emigrant  agencies,  and 
"Homes"  of  all  nationalities  and  in  all  cities  of  the 
United  States.  I  attach  hereto  one  of  said  cards,  of 
which  thousands  can  be  obtained  daily,  and  mark  it 
"  Exhibit  K." 

I  have  pointed  out  very  frequently  the  fact  that  steam- 
ship companies  are  unable  to  ascertain  the  admissibility 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     291 

to  the  United  States  of  emigrants  who  present  them- 
selves prior  to  their  embarkation,  except  through  the 
medical  examination  and  the  questions  put  to  each  of 
them,  before  the  final  ticket  is  issued.  If  the  emigrant 
is  not  well  enough  instructed  by  those  who  originally 
sent  him  on  his  road,  it  happens  that  his  inadmissibility 
is  occasionally  detected,  as  I  have  noticed  at  the  offices 
of  the  Hamburg-American,  Red  Star,  and  Holland- 
American  lines,  at  the  ports  of  Hamburg,  Antwerp, 
and  Rotterdam  respectively,  but  this  is  rarely  the  case. 
The  emigrant  is  most  thoroughly  instructed  when  he 
reaches  the  offices  of  the  steamship  companies,  having 
undergone  perhaps  two  or  more  special  courses  of  in- 
struction at  the  hands  of  the  so-called  subagents;  but 
should  the  answers  of  such  emigrant,  in  spite  of  this 
instruction,  be  found  faulty  in  certain  respects,  it  would 
be  idle  to  assume  that  the  agencies  would  refuse 
to  forward  him;  a  striking  example,  illustrating  this 
circumstance,  may  be  found  in  an  article  of  the  Ital- 
ian newspaper  //  Dovere,  published  in  the  city  of 
Bellinzona,  Switzerland,  bearing  date  June  23,  1903,  a 
copy  of  which  I  annex  hereto,  marked  "Exhibit  L." 
The  article  in  question  will  be  found  on  the  second  page 
of  said  exhibit,  marked  with  blue  pencil,  which  was 
sent  from  Chiasso  under  like  date,  relating  the  story  of 
an  Italian  emigrant  by  the  name  of  Marcaccio  Vincenzo, 
who  on  May  2,  1903,  sailed  for  New  York  on  board 
the  North-German  Lloyd  steamer  Friedrich  der 
Grosse,  accompanied  by  a  woman  who  had  deserted 
her  husband,  in  the  same  manner  that  said  Vincenzo  de- 
serted his  wife,  and  both  of  whom,  upon  their  arrival 
at  Ellis  Island,  were  duly  deported. 

The  article  further  states  that  Vincenzo  returned  to 
Chiasso  and  went  to  the  agency  of  Jauch  &  Pellegrini, 
where  he  had  purchased  the  tickets  for  himself  and  the 
woman,  and  demanded  the  return  of  his  money,  which 
of  course  was  refused.  Vincenzo  thereupon  went  to 
the  authorities  and  made  a  sworn  statement  to  the  effect 
that  at  the  time  of  purchasing  the  tickets  mentioned  he 
told  the  firm  of  Jauch  &  Pellegrini  that  the  woman  ac- 
companying him  was  not  his  wife,  and  that  he  was 


292    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

then  and  there  instructed  by  said  firm  that  upon  his  ar- 
rival at  New  York  he  must  state  that  the  woman  ac- 
companying him  was  his  wife.  The  case  of  this 
emigrant  was  disposed  of  in  a  very  simple  manner;  he 
was  sent  across  the  border  to  Italy  and  sentenced  to 
eight  months'  imprisonment  for  deserting  his  wife  and 
committing  adultery.  The  woman  in  question  was 
likewise  sent  to  jail  for  eight  months. 

I  was  informed  at  Chiasso  by  the  other  steamship 
agents  that  they  had  reported  this  case  to  their  respective 
companies,  requesting  that  the  agency  be  withdrawn 
from  Jauch  &  Pellegrini,  as  occurrences  of  this  kind 
had  a  tendency  to  harm  them  in  their  business,  but 
that  nothing  was  done  by  the  steamship  companies  in 
this  direction.  I  was  also  informed  that  the  real  own- 
ers of  the  firm  of  Jauch  &  Pellegrini  are  the  notorious 
firm  of  Corecco  &  Brivio,  at  Bodio,  Switzerland,  who 
are  the  general  agents  of  the  Compagnie  Generale 
Transatlantique,  and  to  whom  reference  was  made  by 
Special  Immigrant-Inspector  Robert  Watchorn,  in  his 
report  of  August,  1902 — Corecco  &  Brivio  are  likewise 
the  owners  of  La  Svizzera  Societa  Anonima  per 
1'  Emigrazione,  at  Chiasso,  representing  the  Beaver 
Line. 

The  material  collected  and  the  observations  made 
during  my  travels  abroad  would  permit  of  the  citation 
of  hundreds,  even  thousands,  of  other  instances  of  a 
similar  character,  and  those  above  enumerated  are  but 
individual  cases  selected  from  an  abundance  of  equally 
flagrant  examples.  We  cannot  escape  the  conclusion 
that  a  large  number  of  undesirable  emigrants  succeed 
in  reaching  our  shores  in  spite  of  the  vigorous  enforce- 
ment of  our  immigration  laws  at  the  Atlantic  seaports 
as  well  as  the  Canadian  border,  and  in  spite  of  the  ap- 
parent good  faith  on  the  part  of  the  steamship  com- 
panies to  comply  with  such  laws.  Although  this  un- 
desirable emigration  still  continues,  yet  it  is  my 
observation  that  it  has  materially  decreased  in  the  past 
year  or  so,  because  of  the  fact  that  it  is  generally 
known  throughout  the  Continent  that  our  laws,  as  at 
present  administered,  are  being  strictly  enforced  and 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     293 

every  effort  made  to  detect  undesirable  immigrants  and 
to  return  them  upon  such  detection.  If  it  were  not  for 
the  precautions  taken  and  the  excellent  work  at  our 
various  immigrant  stations,  as  well  as  the  apparent 
desire  of  the  various  steamship  companies  to  comply 
with  the  law,  undesirable  immigration  would  have  in- 
creased to  alarming  proportions.  I  do  not  mean  to  be 
understood  that  the  law  in  its  present  state  is  in  a  per- 
fect condition,  for  it  still  leaves  open  loopholes  for  un- 
scrupulous steamship  agents  and  their  dupes,  who 
succeed  in  one  form  or  other  in  evading  the  law,  in 
spite  of  the  vigilance  of  the  officials  under  your  juris- 
diction. 

I  am  confirmed  in  this  statement  by  my  observance 
of  many  instances  in  point,  particularly  the  fact  that  a 
large  number  of  deported  and  refused  emigrants  never 
return  to  their  homes,  despite  the  fact  that  steamship 
companies  provide  them  with  railroad  tickets  and 
necessary  transportation  to  convey  them  to  their 
homes. 

A  significant  feature  in  this  connection  is  the  ex- 
hibition to  me  by  Mr.  A.  Storm,  manager  of  the  pas- 
senger department  of  the  Hamburg-American  Line,  of  a 
letter  addressed  to  him  by  the  director  of  the  Royal 
Prussian  Railroad  at  Altona,  substantially  to  the  effect 
that  the  railroad  authorities  would  hereafter  decline  to 
redeem,  at  their  full  value,  unused  portions  of  railroad 
tickets  for  points  at  the  Austrian  and  Russian  frontier 
presented  by  passengers  at  Berlin,  but  would  deduct 
twenty  per  cent  therefrom  for  the  trouble  and  incon- 
venience caused  by  the  redemption  of  so  large  a  number 
of  these  tickets.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  some 
secret  agency  is  at  work  deflecting  from  their  homes  to 
parts  unknown  such  deported  passengers  who  arrive  at 
Berlin.  One  reason  for  such  deported  and  refused  emi- 
grants not  returning  to  their  homes  was  given  me  by  Mr. 
Max  Hirschfeld,  manager  of  the  Anglo-Continentales 
Reise-Bureau,  at  Rotterdam,  which,  in  its  zeal  and 
activity,  is  second  only  to  F.  Missler,  at  Bremen,  in  an 
interview  which  I  had  with  him.  He  frankly  admitted 
to  me  that  it  had  been  and  is  his  purpose,  when  passen- 


294    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

gers  booked  by  him  are  refused  or  deported,  to  prevent 
them  from  reaching  their  homes,  for  the  reason  that  it 
would  injure  his  business  to  have  it  spread  in  the  com- 
munity that  passengers  booked  by  him  were  not  ad- 
mitted into  the  United  States,  and  in  order  to  accom- 
plish this  he  cited  cases  to  me  where  he  spent  as 
much  as  $100  on  individuals  for  such  purpose. 

Taking  all  of  the  above,  together  with  the  experience 
gained  and  the  observations  made  as  a  basis,  the  situa- 
tion can  be  summed  up  as  follows: 

The  deplorable  political  and  financial  conditions  of 
the  eastern  and  southern  countries  of  Europe,  coupled 
with  the  prosperous  condition  of  the  United  States, 
creates  a  large  natural  emigration  to  our  shores.  The 
most  convincing  proof  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  of 
these  countries  of  the  exceptional  prosperity  of  our 
country  is  the  large  sums  of  money,  almost  unprece- 
dented to  them,  which  annually  arrive  from  friends 
and  relatives  residing  in  the  United  States.  Besides 
this  natural  emigration,  however,  we  are  burdened 
with  a  dangerous  and  most  injurious  unnatural  immi- 
gration which  from  year  to  year  assumes  larger  pro- 
portions. This  unnatural  emigration  consists  of  pau- 
pers and  assisted  emigrants,  and  is  induced  and  brought 
about  by  the  unscrupulous  and  greedy  activity  dis- 
played by  a  large  number  of  agencies  and  subagencies 
having  well-established  connections  in  the  United 
States  and  abroad,  apparently  unknown  to  the  steam- 
ship companies,  which  activity  manifests  itself  in  the 
peddling  of  steamship  tickets  and  prepaids  on  the  in- 
stalment plan,  both  here  and  abroad,  the  constant  agi- 
tation and  offers  of  inducements  by  subagents  in 
Europe,  occupying  semi-public  positions,  who,  in  order 
to  earn  commissions,  play  upon  the  ignorance  and  sus- 
ceptibility of  the  plain  peasant,  frequently  inducing  him 
to  sell  or  mortgage  all  his  belongings  for  the  purpose 
of  raising  the  necessary  traveling  expenses,  which  lat- 
ter transaction  is  also  turned  to  profit  by  such  agent. 

The  steamship  companies  of  course  do  not  concede 
the  existence  of  such  unnatural  emigration,  as  I  learned 
in  the  course  of  an  interview  which  I  had  with  a  high 


LEGISLATION  AND  EVASION     295 

official  of  one  of  the  steamship  companies  abroad.  I 
called  his  attention  to  this  unnatural  emigration,  but 
the  prevalence  of  the  same  was  denied  by  him.  "  If 
all  this  emigration  is  brought  about  by  natural  causes," 
said  I,  "  and  the  business  would  come  to  you  any  way, 
why  do  you  have  so  many  agencies  broadcast  instead 
of  opening  offices  under  your  direct  supervision  and 
control,  thus  saving  the  commissions  you  have  to  pay 
your  agents?"  He  replied,  that  would  necessitate  the 
employment  of  a  large  corps  of  clerks  and  assistants, 
and  that  the  maintenance  of  such  offices  would,  in  the 
end,  result  in  the  expenditure  of  a  much  larger  sum  of 
money  than  is  paid  out  in  commissions.  This  argu- 
ment, of  course,  does  not  in  the  least  refute  the  well- 
established  fact  that  there  is  a  very  considerable  unnat- 
ural emigration  caused  and  augmented  through  the 
agencies  and  methods  above  enumerated. 

I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  there  are  remedies  to 
combat  this  evil,  but  I  respectfully  submit  and  state 
most  emphatically  that  the  influx  of  this  undesirable 
element  into  the  United  States  could  be  reduced  very 
materially  if  means  were  adopted  to  procure  the  names, 
addresses,  and,  if  necessary,  the  pedigrees  of  persons 
constituting  this  class  of  undesirable  emigrants.  All 
of  the  countries  visited  by  me  keep  public  records  of 
paupers,  criminals,  ex-convicts,  prostitutes,  and  dis- 
eased; and  such  records  are  obtainable,  and  if  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  proper  United  States  officials  the  infor- 
mation thus  at  hand  would  obviate  the  necessity  of  re- 
lying upon  the  statement  of  the  emigrant  himself,  and 
would  tend  to  keep  out  of  the  United  States  an  ele- 
ment which  annually  invades  our  shores  in  so  large  a 
number. 

The  contract-labor  question  is  somewhat  more  com- 
plex. It  is  undeniably  true  that  great  numbers  of  con- 
tract laborers  are  annually  imported  into  the  United 
States,  which  fact  is  well-known  to  Government 
officials  abroad.  If  the  statement  made  to  me  by 
Herr  Franz  von  Kaltenbrunn,  Councilor  to  the  Ministry 
of  the  Interior  of  Austria,  can  be  taken  as  an  argument 
in   point,   it   establishes  this  importation  of  contract 


296    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

labor  beyond  a  doubt.  Herr  von  Kaltenbrunn,  in  the 
interview  which  I  had  with  him,  exhibited  to  me  a 
rough  sketch  of  an  emigration  bill,  in  the  drafting  of 
which  he  was  then  engaged  and  which  he  said  is  to  be 
submitted  to  the  next  session  of  the  Reichsrath  (Lower 
House  of  Austrian  Parliament),  such  bill  being  de- 
signed for  the  protection  of  Austrian  subjects  who  are 
being  engaged  to  work  abroad,  by  requiring  the  con- 
tractor or  his  representative  to  furnish  a  guarantee  or 
some  form  of  security  to  the  effect  that  the  promises 
and  agreements  contained  in  the  contract  made  with 
such  laborer,  such  as  safe  passage,  payment  of  wages 
promised,  etc.,  will  be  closely  adhered  to.  Irrespective 
of  this  proposed  legislation,  it  would  be  very  difficult, 
as  stated  in  the  body  of  my  report,  to  detect  the  fact 
that  any  such  person  actually  travels  to  the  United 
States  under  contract  of  labor,  and  in  my  opinion 
there  are  but  two  ways  to  discover  this  fact,  one  being 
that  some  means  be  found  to  watch  the  emigrants  prior 
to  their  reaching  the  ports  of  embarkation,  and  the 
other  by  close  scrutiny  and  questioning  at  the  vari- 
ous landing  ports  of  the  United  States.  If  the  various 
boards  of  special  inquiry  were  aided  by  attorneys  at 
law  assigned  to  them,  a  twofold  object  would  be  ac- 
complished; first,  it  would  lead  to  the  discovery  of  the 
importer  of  contract  labor  himself,  and,  secondly,  it 
would  dispel  the  prevailing  opinion  abroad  that  a  large 
number  of  persons  are  constantly  deported  from  the 
United  States  as  contract  laborers  who,  in  truth  and 
in  fact,  are  alleged  to  be  going  to  the  United  States 
in  good  faith  and  not  under  contract,  which  I  believe  is 
frequently  the  case  and  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  un- 
fortunate emigrant  becomes  so  confused  by  the  mani- 
fold advices  and  instructions  he  receives  prior  to  his 
arrival  that  he  is  made  to  believe  things  he  has  never 
intended  to  say.  The  assignment  of  counsel  to  the 
various  boards  of  special  inquiry  would  also  aid  them 
in  every  other  respect. 
Respectfully  submitted. 

Marcus  Braun, 
Special  Immigrant  Inspector. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

WHAT  TO  DO  WITH  THE  IMMIGRANT 

AFTER  long  and  careful  study  of  all  the  many 
and  complex  phases  of  the  immigration  ques- 
tion, I  have  formed  a  clear  and  definite  idea 
of  what  should  be  done  with  the  immigrant.  The  first 
suggestion  of  it  came  to  me  when  I  saw  how  grossly 
I,  in  common  with  other  Americans  of  the  class  that  is 
informed  on  the  average  concerning  these  things,  mis- 
understood the  aliens  who  come  to  our  shores,  and 
when  I  perceived  the  first  indications  of  preparation  of 
lies  to  be  told  at  Naples  and  at  Ellis  Island,  in  order  to 
evade  the  laws  of  the  United  States.  Slowly  it  was 
demonstrated  to  me  that  any  system  which  makes 
inspection  dependent  on  the  word  of  the  immigrant  or 
his  friends  is  radically  wrong.  Only  a  conscientious 
analysis  of  the  whole  system  allowed  me  to  formulate 
the  proposition  I  am  about  to  state,  and  I  do  it  without 
prejudice,  but  with  strong  conviction  that  it  is  the 
correct  solution  of  the  gigantic  problem. 

Immigration  must  be  either  controlled  and  directed 
or  it  must  be  abolished,  and  the  last-named  alternative 
is  eliminated  by  common  sense  and  considerations  of 
a  humane  nature.  We  need  the  immigrants.  Our 
nation  owes  its  strength  to-day  to  those  who  have 
crossed  the  ocean  in  other  years.  Our  great  industries 
need  their  brawn,  our  undeveloped  regions  need  their 
toil,  and  we  can  easily  accept  150,000,000  more  human 
beings  as  raw  material;  but  they  must  come  as  raw 


igS    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

material, — good  raw  material.  That  given,  our  civic 
atmosphere,  our  conditions,  our  national  spirit  must  do 
the  rest,  and  patriots  must  look  to  the  children  of  the 
immigrants  for  the  best  results  rather  than  to  the  im- 
migrants themselves. 

Diseased,  deformed,  or  physically  insufficient  per- 
sons are  not  and  never  can  be  good  raw  material,  and 
should  not  be  allowed  to  leave  their  homes,  nor  should 
any  members  of  their  families  on  whom  they  are,  or 
are  likely  to  be,  dependent. 

Convicts,  prostitutes,  persons  engaged  in  questionable 
pursuits,  anarchists,  radical  socialists,  and  political  agi- 
tators are  a  menace  to  the  body  politic,  though  reason- 
able inability  to  make  a  livelihood  should  be  considered 
a  mark  of  pauperism  rather  than  failure  to  accumulate 
any  property  whatsoever  under  European  conditions. 

The  true  conditions  of  all  such  persons  is  readily 
ascertainable  from  the  civic,  police,  and  military  records 
in  the  communes  of  their  residence,  to  which  can  be 
added  the  supplemental  evidence  of  their  neighbors 
and  the  local  officials  of  the  communes.  In  the  com- 
munes of  their  nativity  the  truth  is  known  and  cannot 
be  hidden.  At  the  ports  of  embarkation  combined  in 
fluences  can  deceive  the  best  officials.  At  the  ports  of 
arrival  the  hand  of  the  inspector  is  still  weaker,  no 
matter  how  thorough  the  examination  or  how  excel- 
lent the  system. 

The  conclusion  is  plain:  seek  the  grounds  on  which 
to  deny  passage  to  emigrants  who  wish  to  come  to  the 
United  States,  in  the  villages  from  which  they  emanate. 

What  seems  to  me  to  be  the  best  plan  to  do  this,  to 
keep  the  expense  below  that  which  it  is  at  present,  and 
to  avoid  the  opportunities  which  are  sure  to  be  pre- 
sented for  wholesale  corruption  of  American  officials 


THE    IMMIGRANT  299 

by  the  transportation  interests  and  by  the  emigrants 
themselves,  is  this: 

Select  emigrants  before  itinerant  boards  of  two,  three, 
or  more  native-born  Americans  who  speak  fluently  and 
understand  thoroughly  the  language  and  dialects  of  the 
people  who  come  before  them, — these  boards  to  be  on 
a  civil-service  basis. 

The  long  diplomatic  delays  and  ensuing  red  tape  of 
incorporating  the  privileges  of  these  boards  in  treaties 
with  the  several  European  governments  can  be  avoided 
by  temporary  operation  under  the  present  consular 
system  of  the  United  States,  and  little  objection  would 
be  met  with  from  any  of  the  governments  from  whose 
domains  the  immigrants  come. 

In  districts  from  which  the  emigration  is  profuse  at 
present,  a  smaller  number  of  communes  and  a  more 
frequent  visitation  should  be  the  regulation.  The  sit- 
tings of  the  boards  should  be  announced  by  advertise- 
ments a  sufficient  length  of  time  in  advance  to  allow 
all  persons  contemplating  emigration  to  prepare  to 
appear  for  examination.  Examiners  should  be  pre- 
pared to  furnish  information  as  to  destinations  and 
opportunities,  and  could,  with  care,  prevent  an  increase 
of  the  congestion  in  the  cities  of  the  East.  In  extrem- 
ity, regulations  could  be  made  which  would  allow  them 
to  deny  clearance  and  passage  to  persons  desirous  of 
going  to  districts  already  over-populated  with  aliens. 

As  to  the  requirements  for  admission  to  the  United 
States,  our  present  code  of  laws  has  them  well  defined 
except  in  the  matter  of  illiteracy,  and  my  personal  ob- 
servation has  been  that  illiteracy  does  not  interfere 
either  with  the  value  of  an  immigrant  to  the  civic  body 
or  with  the  rapidity  of  his  absorption  among  us;  in 
fact,  the  educated  class  cling  more  tenaciously  to  all 


3<x>    IMPORTED   AMERICANS 

that  is  Old  Worldly,  and  are  more  inclined  to  hold 
political  views  that  are  at  variance  with  our  system  of 
government.  That  a  man  cannot  read  or  write  his 
native  tongue  does  not  make  him  any  the  worse  piece 
of  raw  material  here. 

When  a  party  of  emigrants  has  been  passed  and 
given  papers  with  photographic  identification  as  well 
as  detailed  physical  description,  with  a  time  limit  of 
use  of  thirty  days,  it  should  be  instructed  as  to  baggage 
so  as  to  minimize  this  aggravating  feature,  and  should 
depart  under  the  charge  of  a  courier,  going  to  the 
nearest  port  of  transatlantic  departure.  This  would 
work  a  great  change  in  emigrant-carrying  lines,  but  is 
plainly  the  most  convenient  and  economical  procedure 
for  all  concerned.  The  party  could  be  delivered  directly 
on  board  on  the  day  of  sailing,  and  thus  all  the  frauds 
and  grafting  schemes  would  be  avoided.  The  saving 
to  emigrants  by  this  method  would  more  than  pay  for 
the  expenses  of  the  examination. 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  these  visiting  boards  could  pro- 
mote emigration  among  the  classes  which  are  most 
desirable  in  northern  and  central  Europe,  and  are  now 
so  chary  of  coming.  Families  which  have  something 
to  lose  by  being  turned  back  from  the  United  States 
are  loath  to  dispose  of  their  property  and  make  the 
venture.  If  they  knew  they  were  certain  of  admission 
before  they  left  their  homes,  a  year's  time  would  see 
the  level  of  the  grade  of  emigrants  greatly  elevated. 

Of  reforms  in  transportation,  little  need  be  said. 
Closed  cabins  and  service  of  food  for  groups  of  six  or 
eight,  with  an  American  Marine  Hospital  Service  sur- 
geon in  charge  of  each  ship,  would  bring  about  all  that 
is  needed,  with  a  few  minor  regulations. 

Ellis  Island  and  the  smaller  immigrant  stations  should 


THE    IMMIGRANT  301 

continue  their  functions  much  as  they  are  now,  only 
that  little  hospital  room  and  deportation  quarters  would 
be  needed;  the  registry  feature  would  be  decreased  to 
an  examination  of  papers  for  admittance  and  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  excellent  card-index  system.  The 
distribution  and  detention  features  would  necessarily 
be  continued. 

To  the  card-index  system  should  be  added  a  regula- 
tion compelling  all  aliens  to  report,  at  regular  intervals, 
their  whereabouts  and  pursuits,  to  federal  officials  in 
federal  judicial  districts,  until  such  time  as  they  be- 
come citizens  of  the  country  or  are  ready  to  depart.  A 
most  important  feature  of  this  should  be  the  indexing 
and  tabulation  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  able- 
bodied  men  who  have  had  the  excellent  military  train- 
ing of  the  armies  of  Europe,  and  would,  if  properly 
organized,  constitute  a  fine  reserve  force  in  America  of 
at  least  2,000,000  men. 

Deportation  is  the  severest  punishment  which  can 
fall  on  an  alien  in  comparison  with  anything  less  than 
several  years'  imprisonment,  and  all  admissions  to  the 
country  should  be  made  probationary;  the  commission 
of  any  crime  or  crimes,  and  conviction  therefor,  to  be 
followed  by  punishment  and  then  by  deportation. 
Many  of  the  minor  crimes  committed  by  aliens  are 
done  with  the  intention  of  getting  two  or  three  years 
in  prison  in  which  to  learn  to  read  and  write  English 
and  acquire  a  trade. 

The  practical  statesman  will  at  once  object  to  this 
programme  on  the  ground  of  the  terrific  expense  of 
maintaining  thousands  of  men  in  Europe  to  consti- 
tute these  boards  of  examiners.  By  careful  computa- 
tion I  have  ascertained  that  it  would  cost  approximately 
two  dollars  per  head  to  examine  and  admit  each  immi- 


302    IMPORTED  AMERICANS 

grant,  whereas  at  this  time  it  costs  each  immigrant 
nearly  five  dollars  to  be  examined,  inasmuch  as  the  ex- 
tra expense  to  which  the  steamship  company  goes  is 
added  to  the  price  of  his  ticket.  Over  and  above  this 
the  money  he  relinquishes  to  grafters,  subagents,  ad- 
visers, etc.,  totals  a  sum  that  is  beyond  reckoning. 

Summing  up,  this  plan  would  achieve  in  simple 
fashion  the  following  things: 

Undesirable  emigrants  would  be  prevented  from 
leaving  their  homes. 

Ruin  and  suffering  would  not  fall  on  those  now  sent 
back. 

Desirable  immigration  would  be  wonderfully  stimu- 
lated. 

Practices  of  officials  of  foreign  governments  in  dump- 
ing into  this  country  criminals,  foundlings,  agitators, 
etc.,  would  be  ended. 

Emigrants  would  be  protected  and  great  economy  in 
travel  would  be  effected. 

Smuggling  and  underground  methods  would  be  dis- 
concerted and  contract-labor  frauds  prevented. 

Naturalization  frauds  would  cease  to  avail,  and  legal 
naturalization  would  be  greatly  increased. 

Custom-house  officers  would  be  greatly  assisted, 
revenues  increased,  and  goods-smuggling  minimized. 

The  proper  distribution  of  the  flood  of  immigration 
would  be  at  all  times  under  the  control  of  the  Ameri- 
can government. 

immigration  would  cease  to  be  affected,  to  its  detri- 
ment, by  the  business  competition  of  transportation 
companies  interested  solely  in  conveying  as  many 
aliens  to  America  and  back  and  forth  again  as  often  as 
possible,  without  any  regard  whatsoever  to  the  class 
of  people   carried,    so  long  as  they  have  the  money 


THE    IMMIGRANT  303 

to  pay  the  fares  and  swell  the  enormous  profits  that 
emigrant-carriers  realize  at  present. 

When  these  things  are  achieved,  there  is  no  one  to 
deny  that  the  immigration  problem  will  have  been 
solved,  unless  it  be  those  who  are  ignorant  and  pre- 
judiced in  the  matter,  or  who  profit  by  the  continued 
depression  of  the  grade  coupled  with  the  increase  in 
volume  of  immigration  which  mark  the  present  con- 
dition in  a  way  to  cause  every  true  American,  who  has 
the  best  interests  of  his  country  at  heart,  to  look  to  the 
future  with  uncertainty  and  dread. 


THE  END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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